Rorschach test Is the ProJo’s superb watchdog reporting the mark of a vibrant newspaper, or a vestige of bygone glory days? BY IAN DONNIS
	White city   ONE PERENNIAL ISSUE facing the Journal is how the number of racial or ethnic minorities on the reporting staff of the newspaper — which operates in a minority-majority city — can be counted on one hand. As one staffer, who notes that a black male news reporter hasn’t worked at the ProJo since Dion Haynes left for the Chicago Tribune in the early 90s, puts it, "You walk in the newsroom, it looks like Johannesburg, circa 1967." Some minority leaders, such as Dennis Langley, executive director of the Urban League, nonetheless credit the Journal with dramatically improving the quality of its coverage of minority issues over the last eight or so years. "We’ve seen a radical change in their approach, in that they have become a lot more inclusive, a lot more sensitive to issues affecting the community," says Langley, who offers particular praise to political columnist M. Charles Bakst and Karen A. Davis, a black metro reporter. "You’re seeing them emphasizing the tolerance, the inclusion, and the education that is needed," he says. "I would obviously have to attribute that to the quality of leadership that [publisher] Mr. [Howard] Sutton is providing to the [newsroom] leaders. Not only do they write, but you seem them at many events." Probably because of its core mission, the Journal has done a strong job in reporting on some important issues of special concern to minorities, including racial profiling and the fallout of legislative redistricting in recent years. It seems telling, too, that when Clifford Montiero, president of the Providence chapter of the NAACP, is asked how well the ProJo does in covering minority communities, his initial concern is the way in which some of his news releases wind up solely in the zoned edition distributed in Providence and East Providence. This kind of limited reach can be frustrating, he says, since, "Many times, I’m speaking on statewide issues that affect the whole state." Montiero rates the Journal with doing a "fair" job in covering minority communities, although he also cites some concern about the small number of minority staffers. "I think they need to have [more] people who are familiar with the city, familiar with the issues that affect the community," he says, or else there’s a tendency to be reactive, responding only to major events and news releases. In describing efforts to recruit minority journalists, Montiero says, managers have told him, " ‘It’s difficult to keep them because it’s a hot commodity’. If that’s the case, they need to get someone born and raised here." The lack of diversity among reporters and editors at American newspapers is a widespread problem, as demonstrated by an annual census conducted by the American Society of Newspaper Editors. In the most recently survey, released in April 2003, the ASNE found that diversity in the newsrooms of American daily newspapers improved by less than one percent in 2002, "but the growth of minority journalists to 12.53 percent of newsroom staff lagged behind the percentage of minorities in the US population, which is now 31.1 percent." The census found that 60 percent of daily newspapers responding to the survey had minority staffers. (The diversity issue also challenges the alternative press — both of the two fulltime editorial staffers at the Providence Phoenix are white males.) To its credit, the Journal has tried to enhance diversity at the newspaper through the selection of reporter-interns. It also features Pagina Latina, a weekly page of Spanish-language news written mostly by Tatiana Pina, who, with Davis, is one of the ProJo’s few minority staffers. Some staffers, however, feel that the paper’s coverage suffers because of the paucity of minority reporters, and that there’s insufficient internal will to change the situation. At any rate, the lack of minority representation is so striking as to be noticeable. "It’s very obvious when you walk into the newsroom," says metro columnist Bob Kerr. "I’ve walked into the newsroom with some blacks and they’ve said, ‘very white newsroom.’ They’ve actually said that." As it stands, the Journal seems more reflective of suburban Rhode Island, which is largely white, than Providence. The problem, as Montiero notes, is "[How] so many people feel the problem of racism is over, and I think that’s a lie." Given such general complacency, he notes, the media has a particular responsibility to bring attention to racial inequities. — Ian Donnis

IN A POETIC bit of symmetry, the first Providence Journal of 2004 — freshly adorned with a logo heralding the paper’s 175th anniversary — detailed the latest fallout of its tenacious coverage of the State House: the abrupt and unexpected resignation of Senate President William V. Irons, who decided to walk, rather than answer questions about whether clients in his insurance practice included local drugstore giant CVS.

As it turned out, Irons received $70,000 in commissions over a two-year period as the broker on a CVS employee health insurance policy, as the ProJo’s Mike Stanton reported on January 14, the latest in a string of stories to illuminate possible conflicts among leading legislators. Katherine Gregg, the Journal’s stalwart longtime State House chief, got the ball rolling with an unusually rich tear through the waning months of 2003, revealing ethics lapses by House Majority Leader Gordon Fox (who later acknowledged a conflict in taking part in a vote that would assure his then-law firm of work from giant lottery maker GTECH) and Senator John A. Celona (who had an undisclosed role as a paid consultant to CVS while chairing the committee that reviewed health-care legislation).

On the strength of this kind of reporting, the Providence Journal stormed into 2004 like a resurgent force, helping to spark an ongoing state probe of possible influence peddling in the legislature. The nasty four-year scrap between management and the Providence Newspaper Guild had been resolved weeks earlier, ushering in the start of one staffer calls a new era of congeniality in the newsroom. The ProJo has continued to flex its muscles in recent weeks, going to bat for the public’s right to know, for example, when the North Kingstown police and Attorney General Patrick Lynch temporarily blocked access to public records about the arrest of a man who died (from an aneurysm, as it turned out) after being taken into police custody. Similarly, when Governor Donald L. Carcieri introduced a misguided homeland security proposal last week, the Journal gave it appropriately prominent display, marshaling the paper’s resources for fulsome second-day coverage, illustrating with five stories how the "Five Freedoms" typically manifest in Rhode Island. By the next day, Carcieri had pulled his proposal.

Even though steady cuts have eroded the ProJo’s staff since before the Dallas-based Belo Corporation acquired it in 1997, this mix of watchdog reporting and First Amendment advocacy remains the heart and soul of the paper’s journalistic mission. Such keen-eyed coverage might ebb and flow, but it always returns, delivering the goods that scandal-accustomed Rhode Islanders suspect lurk just beneath the surface. Even so, the ProJo in 2004 remains the newspaper equivalent of a Rorschach test — a collection of ink seen by some observers as a venerable and potent journalistic vehicle, yet by others as a fading imitation of its former self.

Pointing to strong reporting on different fronts, one camp hails the Journal’s ongoing efforts, particularly its ability to check powerful interests and influence the state’s public life, thereby upholding the most important function of a newspaper. (Perhaps it was a coincidence, but two days after the paper recently reported on the governor being late in filling two judicial appointments, Carcieri filled the slots.) As reporter Gerald Carbone puts it, "I travel around the country quite a bit, personally and professionally, and when I look at newspapers in other parts of the country, even [some of those] larger than ours, we are a lot better. There’s always room for improvement, but I think we are pretty good."

Critics, though, particularly more experienced staffers and some longtime readers, point to the ProJo’s smaller staff in describing a greatly diminished scope of coverage — ranging from courts and the continued influx of immigrants to the state, to such important economic sectors as biotech, research, health-care, and the military — and a tendency toward thinness and inconsistency in the day-to-day paper. As one staffer puts it, "When we are at our best, we are very, very good, but there are many mediocre days as well." Another reporter says, "We’re not as good as we were 10 years ago, for a lot of reasons . . . and because we’re a monopoly, we can get away with it." The pessimistic line maintains that for all the value of the tough State House reporting, the Journal is moving steadily farther from the depth and overall quality that characterized its heyday under local ownership.

There are also those taking more of a middle position, like metro columnist Bob Kerr, who says, "I think the thing that bothers me the most is the physically smaller paper. I think it prevents us from being as extensive as we might be. No one likes [occasional] eight-page A sections and six-page B sections, but it’s still a place you can take pride in working. I think in the past couple of weeks that has really shown."

Executive editor Joel P. Rawson and publisher Howard G. Sutton didn’t respond to requests for comment for this story.

The split in views even applies to some of the paper’s perceived strengths. "I think there are always old-timers who say, ‘It used to be better,’ and I’ll probably be saying the same thing some day," says one reporter, who enthusiastically cites the ProJo’s "Five Freedoms" package as a "pretty remarkable" stand against some of the excessive things promoted in the name of homeland security. To some other observers, though, the package was lacking in objectivity, more of an editorial stance than an incisive use of reporting resources. Certainly, there are far worse things than reminding a politically disengaged public of the value of the Constitution, but the effort was unabashedly one-sided.

(On a related note, the ProJo hopes to win a Pulitzer for its voluminous coverage of the disastrous February 2003 fire at the Station nightclub, which ranged from disorganized to excellent. But the announcement this week that six Boston Globe reporters won the American Society of Newspaper Editors’ prize for deadline reporting by a team, for their coverage of the Station calamity, isn’t likely to diminish the view that bigger out-of-town papers beat the ProJo in its own backyard in the early going.)

The Journal, of course, remains necessary reading in Rhode Island. Thanks to the strength of its watchdog reporting, not to mention a talented staff of journalists — the largest, by far, in the state — and other attributes, it probably retains its claim as one of the better papers of its size. It’s true, too, that downsizing at newspapers is an industry-wide trend. The arguable difference, however, is that although recent cuts at a top-tier paper like the Washington Post may exert something of a qualitative impact, some of those with long memories see the ProJo as a different paper than what it once was. The question now is where it goes from here.