Online and diversity

Before I became Internet General Manager at Cox Ohio Publishing in Dayton, Ohio, I was deputy managing editor here at the Dayton Daily News. My duties included newsroom recruiting, and I went to job fairs in order to ensure we had a steady stream of diverse candidates in our newsrooms. Dayton has always been a leader in newsroom diversity.

I'm confident we'll be a similar leader in online diversity. But online presents a different set of challenges to news owners. As of yet, there's not a lot of focus on diversity in the online world. How many women or people of color run web businesses? (I think I"m one of the few, but don't know for sure; not sure anyone has ever done a survey) This isn't to say that newspapers don't care about diversity --- look at how far the business has come in the three decades (Boy am I getting old). But diversity doesn't happen on its own. It takes focus. Is there anyone out there taking a look at this issue? How are we preparing women and people of color for this new and very exciting online journalism world?