| APME National Credibility Roundtables Project |
Gerald Boyd, former managing editor, New York Times: "There are four things in particular that I have really started to think about. One is leadership. And by leadership, I think what I'm talking about is what John Carroll did last Sunday in the LA Times. I think that is incredibly significant because what he did was to take readers inside the inner thinking of the LA Times newsroom to explain why it had decided to publish this story about Arnold Schwarzenegger. I think this whole- I think this whole need to pull the curtain back and talk about how decisions are made are absolutely critical to where we need to be as journalists, and I think we have really got to take that on and try to deal with it much more effectively."
Ricardo Pimentel, columnist, The Arizona Republic: "But the problem is that, you know, the community at large thinks we only cover half the story. If you're in a community of color, we don't think you cover the story at all. And we see- we don't see ourselves in the paper as much as we should, although this has gotten better. And when we see ourselves in the paper, we see ourselves mostly as victims or suspects. We don't even get, you know, a quarter of the story told for us. And I think the reason is, is that we don't really believe that diversity is a credibility issue. We don't really believe, I think, that diversity really is an ethical issue, every bit as much as getting the story, the name right, getting your facts right. We just don't believe it as an industry because it's too hard to do."