How Diverse Is Your County? Census Maps Tell Stories

Who’s in your coverage area, and how is local diversity changing? Some useful maps from the US Census can help you bring your local demographic picture into focus, and spot current and emerging trends that could help you hone your community coverage and outreach strategies…

First, in 2001 the US Census published Mapping Census 2000: The Geography of US Diversity. This 114-page pdf file puts county-level US Census data on diversity into sharp focus and context. Here are some good places to start your local explorations. (All page numbers refer to the numbering in the pdf file; page numbers shown on the printed version of this document are different.)

• Overall diversity. Page 29, “Diversity 2000,” shows which counties were more or less diverse according to the US Census diversity index (the probability that two randomly selected people in that county would be of different races). Page 30 shows how much diversity changed at the county level since the 1990 Census.
• Which counties are more/less white? People who identify as non-Hispanic white comprise the majority of the US population. Page 33 shows which counties reported an increasing or decreasing percentage of white people from 1990 to 2000. The most notable drop runs in rural counties in a straight line from Montana and North Dakota down to west Texas. Page 34 shows the white population percentage by county. (This Census publication offers similar analysis according to several other racial identities—but knowing trends with the local majority sets the context for understanding emerging minority demographic trends.)
• Interracial families. This is one of the potentially most intriguing angles for your coverage and outreach. Page 94 indicates that in 2000, only a small percentage of people in most counties reported being of more than one race. But that percentage skyrockets for most counties in page 95, which shows how many people 18 and under (in 2000) were of more than one race. A basic fact of demographics is that the younger the generation, the bigger the population—so the 2010 Census will probably reveal an even bigger shift to bi- or multi-racial identification. Might this be a kind of community in its own right worthy of closer attention from your news organization?

Also, earlier this year the US Census released the Census Atlas of the US, which (with a little tweaking) can help news organizations see opportunities for demographic outreach and engagement:

The Atlas was packaged as a 300-page large-format print book containing over 800 maps that illustrate the data from the latest US Census (2000). The complete contents of the book are available as free pdf downloads from the Census site. The downside is that, for some reason, this valuable document was electronically encoded in a way that is not searchable—that is, each page (including all the text) has been captured as an image. So you can’t search the raw pdf files for keywords, etc. However, you can download the book chapter-by-chapter and process the pdf files using optical character recognition (OCR) software to create a reasonably searchable version.

Today I was browsing chapter 3 of the Atlas, on Race and Hispanic Origin. Page 9 of this pdf file offers the story of bi- and multiracial American couples in greater detail: Who’s marrying (or living with) whom, racially speaking, in particular counties? Meanwhile, pages 10 and 11 look at the demographic distribution of bi- and multiracial children as of 2000. (Note that since the 1990 Census did not gather data on mixed-race families or individuals, it’s harder to look at local changes on this front. But the 2010 Census will offer change data.)

What do the maps in these documents say about race demographic trends in your county or region? How might this context relate to your stories, marketing, or strategies? Please comment below.

Go Mobile: Serving Youth as a Long-Term Strategy

Where will your news audience come from in five, ten, or twenty years? If your future news audience clearly prefers mobile media (and they probably do), then go mobile, you must!...

Young people are perhaps the largest demographic that’s currently under-served by news organizations. But they are perhaps the most important community to engage. For any news organization considering its long-term prospects, shifting media preferences are a crucial concern. People generally develop news and information preferences early. And in any business, it’s much easier to adapt your offerings to work with people’s evolving preferences—rather than to try to convince them that they should keep wanting whatever you’re accustomed to offering.

In our Total Community Coverage series earlier this year, we mentioned recent research from the Pew Internet and American Life project about US demographics on mobile media use. According to Pew, 75% of Americans currently own cell phones—and 31% of all US cell phone owners are aged 18-29. On a typical day, 73% of cell phone owners aged 18-29 use their phones for something other than voice calls (sending or receiving text messages, taking pictures or video, instant messaging, accessing news or information, etc.)

That Pew study only polled adults, so their data do not take teens, “tweens,” or younger children into account. However, Frank W. Baker has created an excellent roundup of current research into the media habits of children. There I found:

• Deloitte & Touche 2007 study: 84% of US “Millennials” (people aged 13-24) send and receive text messages on their cell phones, and 46% of Millennials use their cell phones as an entertainment device.
• J-Ideas 2007 study: A total of 53% of US teens currently get news online at least weekly. Furthermore, 15% of teens use mobile devices such as cell phones and PDAs to get news several times weekly.

Plus, CBS News reported in 2007 that by 2009, “over 10 million US kids will get cell phones.” Like I said: Media preferences start young!

For a potentially humbling but valuable experience, try accessing your favorite news sites (including your own) via your cell phone. If you don’t have a “smart phone” that can browse the internet, then sign up for whatever text messaging services those sites offer. Keep an eye out for these issues:

• Auto-detection of mobile device? When you accessed the site’s main URL, did it automatically serve up a mobile version of the site? This is an important part of mobile usability, since pages typically take longer to download, and since mobile users might not have time or patience to try again. For a good example of mobile auto-detection that works for almost every smart phone, check out the Houston Chronicle’s site. Just go to their regular URL, Chron.com, on your smart phone. The Fox News site also auto-detects mobile devices. The mobile version of the Drudge Report offers this list of mobile-friendly news sites.
• Special URL needed for mobile devices? Some news sites require mobile users to visit a special URL to access their mobile-friendly version. For instance, if you want to see the mobile-friendly version of ABC News, you must visit m.abcnews.com. (Except on an iPhone, which currently cannot download that site.) This is a reasonable halfway step for your mobile news audience—but it’s still a significant potential barrier. Mobile visitors who don’t already know your mobile URL will have to search for it via search engines or on your site. If your mobile site currently has a separate URL, make sure a link to your mobile site appears near the top-left corner of your regular site, for easy mobile access.
• Text messaging services. Most cell phone users don’t own smart phones—which cost much more to buy, and for the carrier contract. However, virtually every cell phone in use today can send and receive text messages. So in addition to offering a mobile-friendly version of your site, it’s a good idea to also offers free text-message alert services that mention top headlines and breaking news in a variety of categories. Well, at least “free” to subscribe—cell owners do pay for text messages they receive. That’s why it’s important to allow mobile users to customize their text alert preferences, and to never send them more than a few messages daily at most. Check out the offerings from Bakersfield.com and Reuters.

What mobile options are your favorite news sites offering—or missing? Please comment below. Need some guidance on making your site mobile-friendly? Check out the Newspaper Association of America’s new development guide for mobile sites (reviewed here by the Houston Chronicle’s online operations manager David Herrold).

White and Male Privilege Meets the 2008 Election

Yesterday on BlogHer, Maria Niles posted a must-read primer on the privileged status our society tends to accord whites and males, and how this might affect the current presidential race and beyond. Squirming yet? Don’t worry, you’re not alone…

In Racism and the race: What’s white privilege got to do with it?, Niles notes that race and gender privilege is a thorny, taboo topic in our society—not generally deemed fit for polite conversation. Even in many newsrooms, where the white male-concocted culture of traditional journalism often persists despite increasing diversity, raising the issue of privilege is an easy way to start a heated, emotional argument.

No one likes to admit that they may have benefitted from social privilege. This acknowledgement stirs strong emotional reactions, from guilt to defensiveness to denial to penitence, and more. That makes talking about privilege—and learning to recognize and address it—much harder.

Niles’ essay includes links to many seminal resources, including Tim Wise’s Sept. 13 essay, White Privilege, White Entitlement and the 2008 Election; and Peggy McInTosh’s White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.

Here’s a quote from McIntosh that nails the essence of what it means to have privilege:

“I think whites are carefully taught not to recognize white privilege, as males are taught not to recognize male privilege. So I have begun in an untutored way to ask what it is like to have white privilege. I have come to see white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets that I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was “meant” to remain oblivious. White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools , and blank checks.”

Meanwhile, Wise offers a litany of sharply-worded examples of how white and male privilege is manifesting in current campaign coverage and discourse. Although he’s obviously denigrating the Republican candidates, he does make some good point regarding the effects of privilege on the questions that people (including journalists) choose to raise and the assumptions they make. Here are just a couple:

“White privilege is when you can get pregnant at seventeen like Bristol Palin and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that of your family is a personal matter, and that no one has a right to judge you or your parents, because ‘every family has challenges,’ even as black and Latino families with similar ‘challenges’ are regularly typified as irresponsible, pathological and arbiters of social decay. “...White privilege is when you can claim that being mayor of a town smaller than most medium-sized colleges, and then Governor of a state with about the same number of people as the lower fifth of the island of Manhattan, makes you ready to potentially be president, and people don’t [roll about] with laughter, while being a black U.S. Senator, two-term state Senator, and constitutional law scholar, means you’re ‘untested.’”

Niles notes about the resources mentioned in her essay: “Privilege is not just afforded to whites, however. It is something that in this country benefits men, Christians, heterosexuals, able-bodied people, ... I am including a reading list on privilege for those who are open to learning more about the concept and not just interested in staking out a defensive, so-called color blind position. The more that we open up and engage in these discussions, the closer we inch towards eliminating racism (and sexism and every other ism out there).”

Seems like a good place to start.

Have you noticed white or male privilege in action in your newsroom or community? Does it get acknowledged or addressed? What role can or should news organizations play in clarifying this issue? Please comment below.

Do “Hispanic-Fluentials” Like Your News?

What are Hispanic bloggers saying about your news and info?...

An Aug. 28 article by Jose Villa in MediaPost’s newly launched Engage:Hispanics blog begs this question. And the answer might effect your news brand more than you’d think.

Villa gives an overview of research concerning the recent rise and influence of Hispanic bloggers, as well as growing Hispanic interest in reading blogs. Some highlights:

• According to ComScore Media Metrix, “WordPress and TypePad (two popular blogging platforms and networks) generated 2.9 million monthly unique Hispanic visitors in July, surpassing the traffic of popular Hispanic destinations such as Univision.com, Terra.com, and Batanga.com.”
• “The latest AdAge Hispanic Fact Pack says that 5.35 percent of online Hispanics visited a blog and 2.3 percent wrote a blog in the last 30 days.”
• “A March 2008 Burson-Marsteller study revealed that the most influential Hispanic consumers, dubbed ‘Hispanic-fluentials,’ use the Internet to share their views about products and brands as well as to connect with friends and family. Specifically, 49 percent of Hispanic-fluentials used blogs to tell others about product experiences.”

Villa’s article is written for marketers and advertisers of consumer products and services. But news brands need good marketing, too. As bloggers of all kinds become increasingly findable and influential, it’s important to pay attention to what they’re saying—and to be responsive to the points that they and their communities raise.

This means that as you keep any eye on inbound links to or mentions of your news and other offerings, be sure to flag especially influential bloggers. Make sure that at least some people in charge of analyzing this information are fluent in Spanish—you don’t want to miss any nuances with this community. Are there any especially influential Hispanic bloggers (covering any topic, newsy or not) in your community, or who are popular with local Hispanics? Be sure to read them, and engage in conversation there.

If connecting with your local Hispanic community is a priority for your news org, you might want to subscribe to the Engage:Hispanics blog. (Even though MediaPost requires you to provide a surprising amount of personal information in exchange for a free membership.)

Connecting with Jewish Communities (Gefilte Fish not Required)

Learn how to engage community from the masters of this art.

It shouldn’t be surprising that Jews—whose religion and culture are as shaped by diaspora as they are rooted in traditions from the Holy Land—are particularly adept at building and maintaining community through media, both globally and locally.

For a global view, check out the media links at the Jewish Daily Forward, and the long list of links to Jewish newspapers and magazines at JewishLink. And from Jerusalem, Chareidio offers a daily audio podcast of Jewish news that can even be delivered to mobile phones worldwide.

Locally, much Jewish media centers around Jewish community centers, like the Jewish Community Center in Manhattan—which offers local community news, programs registration, and more kinds of in-person and virtual connection.

If you’re building bridges with local Jewish communities, it helps to understand a bit about the various types of Judaism. Judaism101 and About.com: Judaism are good places to start. Amidst Judaism’s diversity, learning and communication are universally prized—which is why even the most conservative, private Jewish communities can be quite sophisticated in their use of online and mobile media.

For instance, many of the Chasidim (an insular branch of Orthodox Judaism which maintains a separate and highly traditional lifestyle) are very active online—especially through the organization Chabad, which hosts the lively ChabadTalk forum.

Houses of worship are the heart and soul of many Jewish communities. You can find local Orthodox synagogues or minyans (prayer groups) through Go Daven. Here’s a searchable database of Conservative synagogues (Note: “Conservative” and “Orthodox” Judaism are not the same: Both believe Jewish law is binding, but only Conservative Jews believe that law can change.)

NOTE: This post is part of a special series on how news orgs can connect with communities of difference through communities of faith. See the series intro for links to the rest of this series.

Most US Jews adhere to the Reform movement—which, while rooted in Jewish tradition, tends to have the most tolerance on social issues such as homosexuality and grants individuals the greatest autonomy to choose which Jewish laws and practices to follow. The Union for Reform Judaism has a directory of Reform congregations. Reconstructionist Jews take the view that the Jewish people (not God’s command) are what make Jewish laws and rituals sacred and meaningful. The Jewish Reconstructionist Federation offers a directory of congregations. Also, the progressive and increasingly popular Jewish Renewal movement holds many events nationwide.

But if you really want to connect with the Jewish community, dive into Jewish culture—especially the music (from traditional Klezmer to Orthodox rapper Matisyahu), food, slang and humor, holidays, and special ceremonies marking major life events. (Here’s a fascinating new trend in faith and digital media: Jewish funeral and bereavement services by phone—and now even by webcast, both live and archived.)

Perhaps the most compelling reason for news organizations to get more connected with the Jewish community is that these people really know how to “do” community—so they can offer many valuable lessons and examples on that front. Furthermore, Jewish communities tend to be very news conscious and media savvy, they have diverse and interesting perspectives, the conversation’s always good, and of course, that’s were the latkes are.