"Good Business Sense"

In December of 1992, there was a joint “Diversity Summit Meeting” of the American Society of Newspaper Editors and the Newspaper Association of America. As William McGowan writes in his essential book on the media, Coloring The News:

This get-together had the unmistakable air of a tent revival, full of grim jeremiads, stern calls for repentance and holy roller zeal. Diversity had been fast becoming one of the most contentious issues in American society and in American journalism, responsible for polarizing, if not balkanizing, more than one newsroom around the country. Yet only one side of the issue was present in this crowd. Speaker after speaker got up to declaim in favor of diversity and to warn of editorial sin and financial doom if this cause was not embraced.

The Newspaper Association of America is a publishers’ organization, concerned with advertising, circulation, and other business-related issues. The American Society of Newspaper Editors has a different brief, concerning itself with the broad issues of news coverage and the newsgathering process