"Imagine that you are the first minority president.

Everything is suddenly different. The nuance of color suddenly seems to take on the greatest importance. While everything is not meant to be seen through rose-colored glasses, the viewpoint is definitely hued because a minority is now steering the ship.

So you get your people to call a press conference in the briefing room. Maybe it’s some catastrophic event or an economic update that will assure your fellow Americans that there is a harbor in the storm. Now from the podium, you look out and the view is decidedly Anglo. Since you’re half Anglo yourself, you take it in stride. Quite frankly, you’re used to it.

But there comes a day when it will seem worrisome. We look out from our Oval Office and we know that the America we are leading is multi-colored. But sadly, it is not reflected in the press, elite or otherwise. This is a realization our new President, Barack Obama, will face when he is holding his press conferences. He will see a paragraph of white faces. Maybe occasionally dotted by the occasional comma or period of a black or Latino face.

This is the way it has always been. Never before have we noticed because the conductor in the orchestra’s seat was also white. Now, it’s a whole new score. The latest figures I am getting show minority reporters at an all time high of 13.5 percent of reporters in the nation’s newsrooms. But I chisel that number to less than one percent when looking at the American Indian newspaper reporters in newsrooms, according to the American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE)."

Get the Story:
S.E. Ruckman: Rumination on lack of diversity in newsrooms (The Native American Times 1/19)

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