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ere's a question: What's white and white and white all over?
No, not ghosts eating marshmallows during a snowstorm. The correct
answer is the alternative press. Yep, the very pages you're reading
are almost all written by Caucasians, and we're not exactly proud
of it. As the Austin Chronicle reports in two articles, Needs
More Color and Minorities in the Mainstream, non-whites
have yet to gain representative employment in one of the most
liberal and equality-sensitive professions around. How can this
be?
I can corroborate these articles' findings with my own newsroom
experience. In each of several news environments where I've worked,
the staff presence of minorities was rare. At one paper, an editor
made a conscious effort towards diversification by hiring a black
writer. Unfortunately, in this particular case the writer was
not very good, and his employment created more problems than it
solved.
My personal take on the issue involves a belief that the standards
for judging minority integration are often unrealistic and miscalculated.
Why should overall minority presence be directly compared to the
percentage represented in a particular work environment? Doesn't
economic class, as much as race, affect hiring patterns? If so,
wouldn't it make more sense to compare minority work-environment
representation to the minority's presence at the applicable economic
level?
Of course, there are equally important questions regarding whether
newspapers, open-minded and socially enlightened though they claim
to be, implicitly promote a cultural status quo by avoiding
the employment of people unlike themselves. If you have an opinion
on the matter and would like to add your two kilobytes worth, head over
to the Talk Back BBS and we can discuss it further.
Elsewhere in this week's News Section you'll find great pieces
about the religious versus the cultural meaning of Christmas,
controversies surrounding the validity of SAT tests, community
outrage over mandatory sentences for drug abusers, and a
zesty little herb called St. John's Wort that has been touted
as "nature's Prozac."

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Click here to find out, or just ignore them.
APD vs. Me: The Hunt Begins 
The Alibi staff sounds off on computerized cop cars. [9]
Benny Villalobos
Children of the Damned 
Angry young man or cranky old fart? You decide! [10]
Cap'n O
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Volume I, Issue 26
December 1 - December 8, 1997
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Click here to find out, or just ignore them.
Needs More Color 
The alternative press has long clamored for a diverse society -- but its own newsrooms are starkly white. [2]
Lee Nichols
Minorities in the Mainstream 
Alternative weeklies and progressive publications are hardly alone in their problems with minority recruiting. [3]
Christmas? 
Does Christmas indeed have any meaning left? A panel of local theologians talk amongst themselves. [4]
Mandatory Minimums 
Prisons are filled to capacity with first-time offenders who received harsher sentences than people convicted of violent crimes. Families Against Mandatory Minimums formed to change the laws. [5]
Ben Fulton
Tales Out of School 
Passing the SAT is big business. [6]
Roseana Auten
SAT Sample Questions 
From the College Board's Test Preparation Materials. [7]
Nurse Ratchett 
Enter the wonderful world of St. John's Wort. [8]
Mike Ratchett, Staff Nurse

Want to know what all these checkboxes are for?
Click here to find out, or just ignore them.
Ghosts of Thanksgiving Past 
When you're a kid and your mother is Italian, you think everybody eats lasagna for Thanksgiving. [11]
Tom Danehy
Hearth & Soul 
Don't put it off -- it will come back much worse. [12]
Suzy Banks
Odds & Ends 
Timed-release news capsules from the flipside. [13]
Devin D. O'Leary
Mr. Smarty Pants 
Our resident know-it-all unearths the latest trivia. [14]
R.U. Steinberg
Now What? 
Can't get enough news? You're in luck -- more news is created every day. Our Now What? page offers a plethora of recommended links to help keep you living in the present. [15]
Build your own custom paper. To find out more
about this feature, click here.
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