Welcome to NAHJ’s new Parity Project website!

¡Bienvenidos! Welcome to the new NAHJ Parity Project website!

The National Association of Hispanic Journalists’ (NAHJ) Parity Project welcomes you to our new website.

We hope to use this website as a portal through which journalists from all backgrounds and platforms and diverse community leaders can better connect with the dramatically growing Latino community throughout the United States.

Among the highlights of this new site will be:

• Multimedia profiles of Latino community leaders who have worked with journalists to improve news coverage of Hispanics. These profiles have been put together by some of the best Latino multimedia student journalists in the U.S.

• A national survey of Latino community leaders on how they use the media, what sources they trust for news, what stories are most of interest to them and what journalists are missing when it comes to covering the Hispanic community. This survey is funded by the McCormick Foundation. Additionally, first-person video accounts from Latino community leaders nationwide on what journalists need to do to improve coverage of Hispanics will be posted on the Parity Project site.

Check out a great profile of Denver Latina pioneer Polly Baca, the first Latina to be elected to the Colorado State Senate. We get the story from NAHJ student member Genesis Samayoa of the University of Colorado-Boulder:

http://parityproject.org/2010/05/profile-of-denver-latino-pioneer-polly-baca

More multimedia profiles from NAHJ student members are in the works, including:

 A bilingual multimedia profile of the Orlando Sentinel’s HispanoSphere.
 The Virginian-Pilot managing editor Maria Carrillo and director of recruitment and staff development Denise Bridges will be profiled. NAHJ launched a multicultural version of the Parity Project at this Norfolk, Virginia-based company.
 A profile of Los Angeles Daily News executive editor and long-time NAHJ
member Carolina Garcia,

Also in the works…

• Multimedia profiles of journalists who have done exemplary work in making sure that diversity is a key element of their storytelling craft.
• Blogs from Latino community leaders who explain the importance of working with journalists to assure fair and accurate news coverage of Hispanics.
• Profiles of colleges and universities that have high enrollments of Latino student journalists and the programs that are preparing the storytellers of tomorrow.
• Successes of the Parity Project in bringing diverse community leaders and journalists together to improve news coverage.

NAHJ’s Parity Project is the brainchild of past NAHJ President and New York Daily News columnist Juan Gonzalez, who is also an inductee into NAHJ’s Hall of Fame.

Started in 2002, NAHJ’s Parity Project is intended to serve as a model for the entire journalism industry when it comes to improving newsroom diversity and coverage of, as well as interaction with, diverse communities, specifically Latinos.

Primary funding for the Parity Project has come from the Chicago-based McCormick Foundation, which has provided more than $1.4 million in grants to this program since 2004.

Additional financial support has come from the Oklahoma City-based Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation.

We hope that the Parity Project continues to change the face of journalism by helping news organizations to better reflect the dramatically growing Latino community in the United States. In the end, we hope that this site helps us to better tell our story.

¡Mil gracias!

–
Kevin Olivas
NAHJ Parity Project Director