Everybody knows that minority groups are a weak link in newspaper readership. Therefore, editors are advised to carry out "diversity audits" to measure how members of minority groups are treated in editorial columns and also to diversify their editorial staffs. For example:

* "[Audit findings] . . . will help the newspaper reach new readers. . . . We must continue this quest for diversity of information and opinions in our newspapers because not only is it the right thing to do, it is the smart thing to do." -- Gregory E. Favre, executive editor, The Sacramento Bee; chairman, American Society of Newspaper Editors' Content Audit Project.

* "Apart from moral and citizenship imperatives, newspaper c.e.o.s are looking at the achievement of greater diversity as good business. . . . [The] largest untapped pool of potential readers may be among blacks, Hispanics, and Asians, particularly as their education and income levels continue to rise." -- Seymour Topping, 1992-93 president of ASNE.

* "Today the central question is . . . how we can shift . . . from seeing diversity as a duty to recognizing it as a business asset. . . . Indeed, social-conscience issues, values, even ethics aside, minorities are increasingly the cornerstone of growth and economic survival for the newspaper industry." -- Dorothy Gilliam, Washington Post columnist.

In the field of newspaper dreams, in other words, if you produce papers that appeal to members of turned-off minority groups, they will read them.

A funny thing gets in the way of the assumed lag in minority readership: the facts. For what "everybody knows" about newspaper readership simply isn't so.

The facts, taken from nationwide and individual newspaper market studies, show that, like the missile gap of the 1960s, the minority-readership gap is either nonexistent or, like reports of Mark Twain's death, greatly exaggerated. In fact, by and large members of minority groups read newspapers pretty much the same way others do.

That's not especially good news, for the public generally isn't patronizing the press all that well. Indeed, nearly four out of ten adults do not read a daily newspaper. Still, minority groups are not the source of the nation's newspaper-readership problems. Nor are they likely to be the salvation.

African-Americans are the country's largest minority group, comprising roughly one-ninth of the nation's population. They also comprise 12.9 million of the 114.6 million adults who read daily papers. Here is the breakdown by race of the adult population and of daily newspaper readership:

Distribution of Adult Population by Race: White: 85.48% Black: 11.36%

Distribution of Adult Daily Newspaper Readers by Race: White 86.35% Black 11.25% Source: Simmons Study of Media & Markets, 1993

The contribution by African-Americans to readership numbers, in other words, is virtually identical to their presence in the population.

The readership patterns of AsianAmericans and other minority groups are similar. The one ethnic group that lags a bit are Hispanics, who make up 7.97 percent of the adult population but 5.59 percent of readers, a difference possibly due to language obstacles. Given the relatively small numbers of Hispanics (except in a few markets), targeting this audience couldn't produce Nirvana for newspapers -- even assuming that the tactic worked.

Interestingly, the whole strategy of catering to particular racial or ethnic groups was debunked in a 1986 ASNE report called "Minorities and Newspapers," a summary of readership research compiled by Virginia Dodge Fielder, director of research for Knight-Ridder, and professor Leonard P. Tipton of the University of Florida. "Perhaps the main conclusion of this review," the authors wrote, "is that newspaper editors should not let myths about minority disinterest in newspapers lead them in the wrong direction."

Several researchers were cited in the report. Thus, for example, Michael and Judee K. Burgoon, communications professors at the University of Arizona at Tucson, noted: "It is not the case that local newspapers have major image and dissatisfaction problems with minorities. . . . Minorities are actually more satisfied with local newspapers than are members of the majority communities. . . . Minorities are interested in hard news and in fact exceed whites in their interest in a variety of news items. . . . Simply stated, socio-economic status is a much more important determinant of newspaper readership than race or ethnic origin."

Ron Browne, former director of research at The Washington Post, similarly noted: "Race is a predictor of newspaper involvement only insofar as it serves as an indicator of economic and educational status. It will increasingly fail to serve our future needs as a targeting tool for circulation development."

The gospel in journalistic circles nonetheless is that big projected increases in minority numbers require coverage geared to minorities to attract them as readers. The statistic cited most often to prove the point is that between the years 2000 and 2010 minorities will account for 87 percent of new U.S. population growth. True enough, but by the year 2010 non-minorities will still comprise nearly 70 percent of the population. If the declining presence of newspapers in America's households is to be reversed, the press will have to face up to the socio-economic barriers to reading that apply to all groups. As ASNE's executive director, Lee Stinnett, pointed out in summarizing the 1986 report: "Lack of education and poverty, not race, are the big obstacles to newspaper reading. Daily newspapers have a big stake in the improvement of schools and the eradication of poverty."

Instead of summoning editors and publishers to battle on these issues, the newspaper industry's most recent report, "Cornerstone for Growth: How Minorities Are Vital to the Future of Newspapers," ignores the need for such a strategy even as the report acknowledges that readership is a function of education and income rather than race. And, while in one breath the report, by a task force that spoke for forty-one press groups, describes as "myth" that minorities do not read newspapers, in the next it emphasizes that becoming "more sensitive to the needs of minority groups" holds the key to readership.

Newspaper executives seem to have failed to learn from their own research reports. As a result, instead of attacking the twin underlying causes of nonreadership -- low income and bad schools -- they have chosen to campaign for minority-friendlier newspapers.

Certainly, diverse newsrooms and improved coverage of minority communities are overdue. Sensitive and informed coverage of all segments of society is in the interests of all readers. But much of the talk directed at editors nowadays sounds like this: If you want to win minority readers -- and you'd better -- pitch them minority-oriented content.

That's not only condescending; it perpetuates myths, and sells minorities short.

CORRECTION-DATE: March 1994 / April, 1994

CORRECTION: CJR's keen-eyed editors managed to spell contributor Vincent Rodriguez's name correctly just once -- in the byline to "The Myth of the Minority Reader" (CJR, January/February). On two other occasions, the "g" in Rodriguez became a "q." We apologize to Mr. Rodriguez.

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