Aug. 26, 2011 — UNITY: Journalists of Color urges MediaNews to keep diversity a top priority as the company downsizes from 11 newspapers to two in California.

We understand that news organizations must make changes to survive as businesses. We also believe that retaining and growing diversity in news coverage and newsrooms are imperative to business sustainability and future success.

These newspapers serve some of the most diverse communities in the country. Any loss of local, in-depth coverage would be a loss to the public.

From our conversations with the company, up to 40 jobs may be lost in MediaNews’ newsrooms. We have urged MediaNews to retain as many journalists of color as possible in the remaining newsrooms because we can only serve our readers and advertisers when we reflect their diverse needs.

The alliance partners at UNITY – the  Asian American Journalists Association, Native American Journalists Association and National Association of Hispanic Journalists — stand ready to help journalists of color who are losing their jobs.

AAJA has compiled job listings and we encourage affected journalists of color to reach out to us at info@unityjournalists.org. We encourage other members of alliance groups to send us journalism job openings.

In this difficult economic time for our industry, we all have to help each other.