Kathy Y. Times is the president of the National Association of Black Journalists. The following are her remark delivered at the Federal Trade Commission’s “News Media Workshop” held on December 1 and 2, 2009:

Good afternoon, I’m Kathy Times, president of the National Association of Black Journalists, the largest journalism organization of color in the United States.

I want to thank Chairman (Jon) Leibowitz, Susan DeSanti and her staff for organizing this conference.

Obviously, diversity and inclusion are two areas of concern for the thousands of African-American members my organization represents around the world. But we also are concerned about the black community at-large and how it will receive news and information in the future.

The challenges that our members face are real. Newsroom jobs held by black journalists were cut by an alarming 18 percent since 2001, making African-Americans the single most targeted group for job losses in newsrooms across the country.

In real numbers, nearly 400 black journalists lost their jobs at newspapers alone last year. Worse, 458 newspapers still have no minorities in their newsrooms.

On the television side, our second annual NABJ census revealed facts about who’s making the decisions.

The 2009 census looked at the diversity of the management teams at 111 stations owned by ABC, CBS, FOX, Hearst Argyle, Media General, NBC and Tribune. Only 11.7 percent are people of color. At the network level, there are no African American executive producers supervising nightly newscasts or morning shows.

The numbers are equally poor at online media outlets.

Without diversity in the ranks of reporters and managers, stories and events that are important to the African-American community are less likely to be covered and more often misunderstood or miscast. The Obamas’ triumphant FIST bump comes to mind.

We enlist the help of not only the FTC and the FCC, but PBS, CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN and even F-O-X to dedicate resources that will lead to online partnerships and boost entrepreneurship that will strengthen ties and coverage in African-American communities.

Thegriot.com emerged with the help of NBC. The Washington Post’s theroot.com is another great example. The opportunities are endless and solutions can be found within our communities.

NABJ is laying the foundation for an interactive online network that will engage the public and serve as a forum for all of our members.

We are concerned about discussions involving federal funding for newspapers. We have listened and only once has our Congress included a person of color in these deliberations.

It is imperative that if any federal assistance is available, we use it to retool newsrooms, help retrain veterans and assist African American newspapers that are struggling.

As newspapers downsize and disappear, consumers will become more dependent on electronic media – namely the Internet and mobile devices.

Studies show that African American households continue to lag behind white households in computer ownership and broadband usage. We are however, more likely to use handheld devices to access the Web.

We believe our community will continue to pursue the latest technology to find news and information, but we also implore the media to find more effective ways to reach them with important and relevant stories that impact their lives.

We are not advocating feel-good band-aids, but rather pushing good business sense – a broader audience leads to more revenue and resources for companies.

In closing, it’s important to point out that NABJ has long been a leading advocate for training and educating black consumers and professional and student journalists.

Consider solutions that will make training more accessible and resources that will make ownership easier to attain.

I thank you for the opportunity to speak before this distinguished panel.