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SPEAKER: First question, and you can just go ahead and speak right up. Is the mainstream media in Minnesota providing a balanced picture of the African American community? If not, why? Robin?

ROBIN ROBINSON: Well, I think a lot of times you'll hear throughout the community that we don't shoot each other on Sunday and party on Saturday, but that oftentimes is what you'll see. We do a fairly adequate job of getting to the African American community in terms of broadcasting.

I'm sure Suzanne and Al might have some differences, but I think we do a fairly accurate-- adequate, excuse me-- job of covering the African American community when it comes to events that might affect, say, the widening of 35W or different community events that go on, Juneteenth celebrations. But I don't think on average it compares with the immediate run into the Black community, say, if there's "something happening," quote, unquote, in North Minneapolis, if there's a shooting or if there's a murder or if there's a drug raid. I think we give inadequate coverage on that aspect, but it's almost overkill.

And so people who sit in their homes in Coon Rapids or Fridley or Bloomington, that's all they see. And so they get a negative impression about what's happening in the African American community. And I think that that is a large part to blame, that we don't think about what we cover. It's just salacious, and sometimes we run out and do it.

SPEAKER: Al McFarland?

AL MCFARLAND: I think there's still a tendency to create Negro experts. And one of the failings of both the broadcast and print media-- white media, in my view-- is their inability to broaden their use of resources from communities of color. If the issue is health, are there no people of color who should be in the expert pool? If the issue is a state budget or the governor's state of the union, are there no people of color who can comment on the issue, not only from a Black or ethnic perspective, but from a perspective of a Minnesotan who has different experiences?

So there is a tendency, or not yet the wisdom in the print and electronic media, in the white media, to engage the breadth and depth of experience and knowledge in our community in covering everyday affairs of life with some kind of rhythm and reason. So that is a failing, I think, though the paper, the Tribune, and the TV people have done much better than they used to do, and so there's a compliment that's given and deserved. But there's still a lot that needs to be done in awareness and in utilization of resources, both for background, for expert testimony, and in covering things that happen.

SPEAKER: Suzanne Kelly, you're nodding your head over there. [LAUGHS]

SUZANNE KELLY: Yes, I agree with Al. We have taken steps at The Star Tribune in particular to make sure that with our photographs and in our news coverage that we broaden our sources, that when you look at our paper on a given day, you may see African Americans and other minority groups doing the normal day-to-day things that we see people doing out in the community. Playing with children in the park, that sort of thing.

But we have not done as good a job as we should have. And a lot of our news coverage that involves minorities and African Americans in particular, still deals with crime, crime particularly on the north side of Minneapolis. There's a heavy amount of that that you'll read in our paper. So while we've taken steps to improve, we have a long way to go.

SPEAKER: Are other journalists, your peers, sensitive to racial issues? And is that reflected in the coverage?

ROBIN ROBINSON: I think as time goes by, many reporters at Channel 9 are showing a great deal of drive to go after a balanced reflection of the people in our community. They will try to make sure that if they are at a skiing event, they will look for Black skiers. I mean, they really do try to go out of the way.

However, sometimes we do fall back, and it's sometimes subtle and sometimes it's very obvious. One of the more obvious things that happens is reporters sometimes have a tendency to look for the quickest video that they can find. And if they say, well, we need some kind of video to do a general story on crime, they'll grab the first video they see. Well, oftentimes that could be a drug raid, which is several African American males.

SPEAKER: So a subliminal message is going out.

ROBIN ROBINSON: Very subliminal message. So we have to stop and look at the video that we are sending out to people, because you are telling them in a subliminal way that Blacks are equated with crime. So sometimes this can be very subtle. Sometimes it can be very obvious. And I think we have a harder-- a harder road to hoe. We have to work much harder to correct that.

SUZANNE KELLY: The other thing is I think there's a comfort level for journalists, and journalists go typically to sources that they know, that they may-- for instance, if they graduated from the university, they may have a tendency to call the university for sources. So I think we need to broaden our comfort level, if you will.

And we have a commitment now at the paper. It's actually written into our job descriptions. How well are you diversifying your sources? How well is diversity-- is the diversity of the community reflected in your coverage on a yearly or six-month basis?

The race relations reporter at the paper also serves as a resource for other reporters, because they may have better sources in the African American or Native American community. They're available to say, well, perhaps you ought to check this person, or perhaps you ought to call this place. So I do see that that's a real issue for us, and it's a concern. And we are focusing on that in a number of ways from the top down.

SPEAKER: Al, you kind of mentioned that earlier. That leads me to ask this question, though. Are African American journalists the only ones able to cover Black stories?

AL MCFARLAND: I don't think so. I think that anybody can cover any story, but you have to be honest as to what you bring to a story. And so if you cover a story and you happen to be Asian and you're in a Black community, you're going to bring your understanding of the world from your mother and father and from your training in language and your ability to perceive to the events that you're observing and writing.

A good journalist can cover any story anywhere on the planet. That's kind of the hallmark and the criteria for being a reporter, is that even if there's a language problem, you know humanity enough. Your attempt is-- your desire is to be familiar enough with human activity to be able to get any story, anywhere.

So I think that the motivation to do that is in the journalist. But there are systemic or institutional barriers and impediments, and part of them can be blamed on expediency, on management. Part of it is blamed on the hidden dimension, and that's management, business, and finance.

Money-- where the money comes from and who's paying it influences how the news finally comes out, I believe. That's a charge that I will level against white media. I'm being very plain, OK?

And what I mean by that is that I think that a response to that from the Black community, from my point of view, is that Black people need to see that they are consumers. If you spend a lot of money at Store A, like a lot of your money goes to purchasing goods and services, that store then is the major sponsor of the 10 o'clock news.

The newscast always shows your people as drug addicts and killers. So in a sense, you're underwriting this very narrow perception of your own community, and this picture that you get in your home that you have financed by your purchases is killing you. That's a problem.

And so things aren't that cut and dried and that simple, and I think that analysis needs to be challenged and argued against too. But that's one analysis that I think ought to be discussed in the media.

And the reason I present it is that I encourage Black people to challenge the reporting institutions, mine included, with their purchasing habits. That's a source of power that consumers ought to have. And if you think that you are underwriting your own demise, you ought to wake up and do something about it.

SPEAKER: So you're proposing a boycott then?

AL MCFARLAND: Not boycotts. I'm just saying people should be aware of the relationship of their purchasing power to news. And they can influence what goes on in the newsroom. And that kind of stands against some of the tenets and principles of objective journalism, but I'm saying that doesn't exist, OK?

And people can influence the overall background and orientation of news by economic choices they make as individuals. There's power in people that isn't utilized.

SPEAKER: Robin Robinson, what do you think of this?

ROBIN ROBINSON: I agree with Al to a point, but I think also part of it-- it's so multifaceted. I think part of it too is just sheer ignorance. A lot of times, we are seeing more and more young white people coming out of college-- and you could say honestly that they have not built relationships with many people of color.

You go into a business where you have to deal with all different types of people, and the only thing that you're looking for in the business sometimes can be that you're looking for the quick story. You don't learn anything about the community.

It's interesting, because we don't know anything about Svenskarnas Dag either. However, sometimes being from the minority culture, you have to learn the majority culture. And the only thing that I can say is that you have to learn both. If you're getting into a business that deals with people, that deals with every different kind of community, not just African American, but Asian and Hispanic, you have to know something about those people.

And so I implore that reporters have to learn. They have to go into every community. They have to accept invitations to luncheons. They have to seek out people in the community and ask questions. How can I get more involved? How can I get more personally involved so I don't have a one-sided perception, one dimension of a people?

SPEAKER: That is something that's not taught in journalism schools.

ROBIN ROBINSON: No, it's not.

SPEAKER: You never hear that.

ROBIN ROBINSON: No, you get the basic tenets, and you're out the door, and you're expected to learn on your own. And that is good. However, learning is expanding your knowledge, expanding your knowledge about people. And oftentimes, I don't think that that effort is made by white journalists.

SPEAKER: We should tell folks what we're doing here. We're talking to three respected journalists in the Twin Cities. Robin Robinson, the Co-Anchor of KMSP-TV's nightly news program. Also talking to Suzanne Kelly. She's the Newsroom Recruiter for The Star Tribune. And Al McFarland, the Publisher of Insight News, also in studio. Are the Twin Cities a good place for Black journalists to live and work by and large?

ROBIN ROBINSON: I think so.

SUZANNE KELLY: I think so.

AL MCFARLAND: I'm the senior journalist here. I think I'm older than both of these guys, and started off right down the street at the Pioneer Press 20 years ago or so. And it was a good environment for the few of us then. I'm suggesting there's probably still only a few of us now.

And I say that like that to say there is a problem, and the problem is the glass ceiling, and that the newspapers still have not taken to heart what they espouse, and the stations haven't taken to heart what they say they believe in. And that is removing barriers to hiring, to employment, and to permanence, and to moving up.

And I want to challenge my colleagues here to-- and I'm sure they both can respond to the challenge. I hope that African American and people of color who work in radio and TV and print stations take on their assignments as more than a job, but rather as a mission. I think this is true of you guys. And as well as do what you have to do to do your job and to fulfill the obligation that you signed up for. That you learn the business, that you know how to run the paper.

I said to a group of NABJ people once, if all white people disappeared at The Star Tribune today, would the paper come out? Are there enough Black people there with the knowledge about the machinery of newspapering, of publishing, of distribution, of selling to run the business? I hope that there are.

But I say that with a challenge to encourage everyone there to learn the business and to work as long as you can, but ultimately, to find ways to control and to own yourselves. And that working, in my view, in white media, ought to be a passage. It's certainly a good destination. And I say white media to provoke people.

ROBIN ROBINSON: [LAUGHS]

AL MCFARLAND: And I hope people are provoked by it. But working anywhere is a passage, and I hope our people who get into good jobs and good companies view it as a passage to empowerment for themselves as individuals and for our community.

SPEAKER: Suzanne Kelly, is there a real commitment to hiring more journalists of color at The Star Tribune, or are we just talking about quotas here?

SUZANNE KELLY: No, we aren't talking about quotas. I feel comfortable in saying that. But we do face a dilemma, and part of that is because this is a good environment to work in and a good community to live in, what you have at The Star Tribune is a layer, both a management layer and a reporting layer of people who are viewing The Star Tribune as a destination newspaper.

They're not passing through here to gain experience to go elsewhere. So we have very little turnover, and the turnover that does exist typically are for entry-level positions. So most of our hiring comes there.

Well, if you have a commitment then to hire minority journalists, much of that focus is in at these lower level, entry-level positions. They want to move up once they're here. They do their time in the trenches, covering night meetings and cops and courts. And they say, what's next for me? What high-profile beat can I apply for? Is there a management track here?

The odds are that eventually those positions will open up, but you're looking at a very long time. So they look around at papers in Detroit, St. Louis, Washington, New York where there's broader avenues for advancement, and they leave. And then we're into this cycle of only hiring at the bottom.

I was recently promoted to a management position, so I would say that, yes, the opportunities are there. But we need to do much more, and part of that is expansion. Part of that is the newspaper taking a look at how it is structured now and looking at ways to restructure.

We're going to have to do some things differently. There's going to be some pain involved. People are not going to get sometimes the promotions that they think they deserve. Every important beat that opens up is not going to be filled from within. Those are the steps we're going to have to take, because we're down a road now that needs to be corrected, and it's not going to be corrected without pain.

SPEAKER: Is that the situation-- is that a similar situation at TV stations, Robin? And I'm thinking about Carolyn Brookter recently left.

ROBIN ROBINSON: I'm thinking about that too. And that's one of the things that I wanted to talk about, the subtle and the obvious. I mean, we have one station in town that A promo that they have for their station is something very souly. They have Black a cappella singers and gospel singers. And then you see one or two Black faces on the air, a minority intern reporter, and then one reporter who's leaving.

And when you look at each of the channels, you may see one or two representatives of the African American community, but we never know by-- you wouldn't know if there were some town hall meetings that the representatives that come out in management are African American, because there are very few. You never see them.

And so one of the problems too I find as we come into the '90s is not so much trying to find people of color who want to be in the media. However, you find young people saying that if you are in the media, you're a sellout. You are just selling out. You are a tool. And so you're finding many young people rejecting the media wholeheartedly for what they see at home, what's coming across their TVs.

Going back to what Al was talking about, empowerment in the community, saying that if you are to adequately reflect us, don't just put us in the visual slots. We need management positions as well too. And I don't think that's turning over as fast as it should be, and I don't think it's because there aren't people out there who are qualified.

AL MCFARLAND: I think one of the things we have to do is step up our response to the situation by assuming responsibility for some of the problems, and be prepared to continue to challenge, but to take proactive steps. I don't know if The Star Tribune is for sale or the Pioneer Press is for sale, or if these are publicly traded companies. I should know this. I don't know.

But if they are, people like myself, like my colleagues here who are people of means now, ought to be investing and buying pieces of the property so that we speak as shareholders and ultimately speak to directors as owners. So that's the initiative that we have to train ourselves to look at and to explore as one of the options.

We don't own a piece of the rock, but we could. And we can't blame you for us not owning it, you, the white public. We have to blame ourselves for not looking at and adopting this one more strategy. But there are many paths and many strategies, and this is just one more that I address as an entrepreneur that I encourage our professionals to address as well. I had hoped, and do hope that in the future such a powerful organization as NABJ or the one that I--

SPEAKER: Which is the National Association of Black Journalists.

AL MCFARLAND: --or NNPA, National Newspaper Publishers Association that I belong to, I'm a director of, we ought to look at amassing capital to invest and to buy properties, either in electronics or in newspapers. These organizations could do leveraged buyouts of the Oakland newspaper that apparently just went back from Black ownership to white ownership.

But this is an idea at this point in time, and we have to start talking about it. And the more we talk about it, the potential for its reality increases.

SPEAKER: We're talking to Al McFarland, the Publisher of Insight News, in the Twin Cities metro. We're also talking to Suzanne Kelly. She's with The Star Tribune, and she's a newsroom recruiter. And Robin Robinson joins us too. She's the Co-Anchor of KMSP-TV's nightly news program.

What about Black-owned radio, TV, and newspapers? I'm thinking about Black Entertainment Television on cable, BET. KMOJ in the Twin Cities. It's a community radio station. Insight News, the Statesman. Are these organizations enough to fill the gap between white-owned media and minority-owned presses and stations?

AL MCFARLAND: Well, I think America is an information-based society. I mean, the times we live in are information-based, and there is no such thing as too much. And I encourage anybody who wants to start a paper or a magazine or newspaper who can marshal the resources and the energy to do it to go for it, because the more who try, the better. Those who are in the field will have to be to stay in the field. And the challenge is healthful. You mentioned the Statesman. It's the Spokesman--

SPEAKER: Excuse me.

AL MCFARLAND: --the Minneapolis Spokesman. But there is room. One of the problems that we deal with is that the Black press has been here as a business for 55, 60 years now with the Spokesman being the oldest paper, created at a time when there were 5,000 Black people in Minnesota back in the 1920s. There are now about 100,000 Black people. Their paper is a 16-page paper. It might have been an eight-page paper serving 5,000. Now it's a 16-page paper serving 100,000. My paper's an eight-page paper, a small paper.

So there's something wrong. Why haven't-- what are we not doing to grow our papers to reflect the growth of our population? And it has to be partly educating both ourselves and our community, and explaining the dynamics and the value of information, and getting our message to the advertising side.

Advertisers still are reluctant to view and to utilize Black-owned and oriented media to reach Black consumers. There is a move afoot nationwide to do ethnic-specific marketing, and the first challenge was to put people of color in front of the camera and then behind the camera, and then now to be in the creative position to produce the advertising and to use ethnically owned or minority-owned media as vehicles to deliver the messages from the marketplace.

So that's our challenge now, is to convince marketers that they should use and that they will be more effective in their selling if they engage ethnic-specific media to deliver their sales message to the consumer. And that's our way of empowering the consumer. And as we do, we empower ourselves. We're in this business to make money, and that's what we have to do.

SPEAKER: We have about four minutes left. I want to ask you all this question. That is, do you feel you are respected by the African American community in Minnesota, or are you seen as selling out to the white-owned media? You're on stations and you write for white-owned newspapers, except for Al. You have your own.

AL MCFARLAND: Let me just agree with Robin. I think that there are a lot of kids coming up who want to be. They see you and they read Suzanne, and they want to be in the media. I think that what you said was true, but it's less true now because I think that there are people who are doing great work in the community. And I see kids who are in the Links and the-- the Links Beautillion, and they say they want to be journalists. So I think there's a--

SUZANNE KELLY: Well, we have a summer internship program that we have usually 250 applicants for the seven slots. And we have to really work to find minority students. We do find them.

But getting back to the question about being a sellout, I've been accused of being a sellout on numerous occasions. And I find it-- it's when the sources in my story, unfortunately, are not the usual suspects, if you will, that The Star Tribune uses. And they may put forth different ideas and views than we are used to reading in The Star Tribune.

And so I think we need to also challenge the community to allow us who work at The Star Tribune and other white-owned media to say, Black people are not monolithic, and we are going to represent a wide spectrum of views. And let's all agree to disagree if need be, but not to challenge the people who are bringing forth the message and saying, if you don't present the message in this way and your ideas do not support my ideas, then I will brand you a sellout. And certainly, The Star Tribune has had a rocky-- to use a kind word-- history with the African American community.

SPEAKER: Robin? One minute left.

ROBIN ROBINSON: Oftentimes in television, you come across a segment of society that feels it has no voice. Those are the people who feel most often that you are a sellout. And it's unfortunate because as Al said, there are young people in the Links and the young people who come from middle class backgrounds that say, yes, I want to be a part of.

But it's also the disenfranchised people who feel that they have no voice. And that's why when I go out to the community and they say that you are representative of a white man's point of view, you have to understand that that's why we are encouraging you. If we have more people of color represented in both print and television and in radio, then you would have a more well-rounded point of view as to what the message is to get out there, who the message is for.

As Suzanne said, we are not monolithic. We don't represent one point of view, but there should be various points of view. You should be able to have that freedom of expression. And that's why we are encouraging young people to get into the field so that more people feel that they have a voice and recognition.