Facts & Success

Parity Project Facts

The goals of the Parity Project are to dramatically increase the number of Latino journalists working at partnering media companies and to improve the quality of news coverage of the Hispanic community. To achieve this, the project develops long-term, holistic partnerships between NAHJ, the individual media company and the Latino community in cities with large and growing Latino populations.The overall goal of NAHJ’s Parity Project is to serve as a model that the entire journalism industry can emulate when it comes to improving newsroom diversity and coverage of diverse communities.

Key Statistics about the Parity Project

• Date Parity Project launched: April 2003
• Companies currently in project: 25 (20 newspapers, 4 television stations, NPR)
• Project launches: 25
• Full-time Latino journalists employed at those companies when project started: 166
• Number hired since project began: 143
• Number for whom this was their first professional job: 34
• Number of part-time journalists and interns hired through project: 42
• Companies where net number of Latino journalists increased: 24
• Companies where net number of Latino journalists stayed the same: 1
• Companies where net number of Latino journalists declined: 0

Best Performing Companies

• The Rocky Mountain News has doubled its staff in two years – from 11 to 25.
• The Corpus Christi Caller-Times went from 17 Latinos on staff to 23 in one year
• The San Angelo Standard-Times has doubled its Latino staff in two years — from 3 to 7

Other Accomplishments

• 34 Town Hall meetings held with more than 1,600 participants
• 35 cultural awareness sessions conducted close to 1,200 newsroom professionals

Project Successes

Parity Partners Connect with Latino Community  

Since NAHJ launched the Parity Project in April 2003, many partnering companies have formed closer working relationships with leaders in the Latino community by forming advisory committees. These committees have helped partnering media companies gain greater understanding of the Latino community.

Read on…

Parity Project Achieves New Milestones

Partner media companies have made significant efforts in hiring more Latinos in their newsrooms.Read on…

Parity Project Newspapers Outpace Industry Trends

Several media companies partnering with the project have achieved record-level of diversity in their newsrooms.

Read on…

What people are saying about the Parity Project:

“The Rocky Mountain News was the first newspaper to partner with the NAHJ Parity Project. It’s been a highly productive partnership that has helped the newspaper better cover its community. We have produced public service journalism – projects such as ‘The Border Within,’ the winner of the Best of the West award for immigration coverage. That would not have been possible without NAHJ’s help in diversifying our staff.”

Check out the Rocky Mountain News’ award-winning, multimedia, multilingual June 2006 “The Border Within” at: www.denver.rockymountainnews.com/news/immigration/index.shtml.“The NAHJ Parity Project has been a godsend to Corpus Christi. It is through NAHJ’s mentorship, support and dialogue building that our community has made significant strides in advancing the well-being of all our citizens. NAHJ has helped the Caller-Times construct a postivie awareness of the Hispanics in Corpus Christi by providing training sessions promoting the history and culture of our Latino roots and helping newspaper personnel understand the needs in our community”

Northwestern University’s Media Management Center recently singled out the Corpus Christi Caller-Times as one of only two newspapers nationwide that were “getting it right” in covering local communities online and the paper’s editor cites the Parity Project as a major reason for that success.Check out the review of this paper at: www.readership.org/blog2/2008/06/two-dailies-getting-it-right-if-future.html.Note: Corpus Christi, Texas is where the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) and the American GI Forum (which is dedicated to Latinos who have served in the U.S. military) were founded. It is also the hometown of the late Tejana singer Selena Quintanilla-Pérez.“I am a reporter at the Los Angeles Daily News because of NAHJ’s Parity Project. The project’s backing is directly responsible for my being hired. During this time of turmoil in the nwespaper industry, the Parity Project is more important than ever. With fewer reporters in the newsroom, it is essential that they understand their communities and tell their stories.”