Affirmative action for conservative journalists?

Terry Mattingly publishes a letter he received from someone he identifies as a "person in a public-radio newsroom." Terry had earlier blogged about public radio's tin ear for religious sensitivities, referencing a tasteless radio skit about the Eucharist and Mike Huckabee. At the time, Terry said that "it's way too simplistic to say that NPR people are all liberals and who are out to mock people like Mike Huckabee and the people who are voting for him.” But Terry's correspondent begged to differ:

Speaking as somebody who’s been a public-radio producer for decades, it’s actually NOT too simplistic to say this. NPR is easily the most monolithically liberal institution I know of in the media. Unless they’ve hired somebody recently I don’t know about, they have zero conservatives or religious traditionalists. . . .

They talk a good game about all views being represented, but the fact is that NPR really has no room for any worldview except that of liberals. To say that they don’t understand believers is a huge understatement. And they have no interest in changing. ...If your religion strikes an NPR reporter as a harmless idiosyncratic hobby along the lines of doing macrame or collecting tin-can labels, you’re safe. It’s the serious Christians who make their hackles rise.

You should read the whole e-mail. Terry goes on to ask what mainstream journalistic institutions should do to bring in reporters, producers and editors who can provide a more diverse perspective on the communities they cover:

Conservatives can complain and complain, but do they really want to see some kind of affirmative action program for journalists who hold ancient, traditional, beliefs (Jewish, Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, Muslim, you name it) when it comes to matters of doctrine and moral theology? Does anyone really think that is what editors should do?

As someone who complains and complains all the time about this sort of thing, I absolutely do not think we should have affirmative action for religious conservatives. Let me be clear: I'm strongly against quota hiring in principle, but I do believe it's important that newsrooms strive to have a culturally diverse staff, not out of some abstract principle of racial or gender justice, but simply so print and broadcast outlets can better understand what's going on in the communities they cover.

That said, I depart from newsroom orthodoxy on this point chiefly in where I draw the line at diversity. Most in the MSM consider diversity to be simply a matter of race and gender, and possibly sexual orientation. I think it should be expanded to include political and religious diversity. If we do not have religious and political conservatives working in newsrooms, we are going to miss a lot of what's actually happening in the real world.

How to achieve that without asking potential hires about their religious and political beliefs? Well, why not start by doing more recruiting at religious colleges with good journalism programs, and among the staff of conservative campus publications? It's true, I believe, that most of the students who study journalism come from a liberal background. But it's also true that minorities are relatively underrepresented in journalism studies -- yet most mainstream media outlets go the extra mile and then some to develop and recruit minority talent. It's all a question of whether or not media managers believe it's important to do so. Do media managers believe it's important to have cultural diversity on their staffs? Or do they really believe that some diversity is important, but not other kinds?

Because I have spent most of my career as an opinion journalist, I've always been open about my political and religious convictions. As far as I'm aware, I've not paid any significant price for them. But I tell you, there's nothing quite like talking to producers, copy editors and beat reporters who work in MSM newsrooms who literally fear for their jobs if their conservative religious convictions were known. I remember one conversation with a young woman who was almost trembling with fear when she was outed as a conservative Evangelical. I remember another conversation with a woman who works in the national media, and who sits in silence at news meetings while her colleagues mock and deride traditional Christians. She lives in the religious closet at work because she's absolutely convinced that if her colleagues, who respect her and her work, knew she was a conservative Evangelical, she would suffer professional repercussions.

The fear is real, and based in reality. If I were a media manager, I wouldn't want my station, magazine or newspaper to be a place where anybody -- straight, gay, male, female, liberal, conservative, atheist, religious, whatever -- felt afraid for their job because of who they were and what they believed. I do wonder, though, how many journalists wonder about whether their newsrooms are as open to political conservatives and traditional Christians as they ought to be -- and how that lack might affect the quality of their institution's journalism.