May 3, 2006

By CALVIN STOVALL
Press & Sun-Bulletin, Binghamton, N.Y.

Many newsrooms with growing immigrant populations already are providing strong breaking news coverage of one of the hottest topics in the news.

This outstanding and ongoing coverage provides an excellent opportunity for newsrooms to give readers further in-depth reporting on immigrant issues in their communities and to hold in-house discussions with immigrants and newsroom staffers.

All newspapers, especially those serving communities with large immigrant populations, are being encouraged to make issues about and of interest to immigrants the focus of their work during this year's Time-Out for Diversity and Accuracy program.

Time-Out, which traditionally is held on a specific date in May, will be held May 14 to June 17 to offer a larger window for newspapers to report and publish stories and to bring people from their communities into their newsrooms.

APME President Suki Dardarian said the organization is encouraging newspapers to revisit their immigrant populations to give readers the context they need to understand the current immigration debate.

"For years, most of our newspapers have worked hard to tell the stories of our regions' immigrant communities, exploring their roles and impact in our world," Dardarian said. "But our communities' demographics are changing and we should re-examine our coverage to ensure our readers understand the issues and – more importantly – that they understand their own communities."

The APME Diversity Committee is asking editors to send web links and/or PDFs of their work during Time-Out to the organization so it can be posted on our web site and in our magazine. We also would like for you to share some of the outstanding enterprise work you already have done in recent months.

Your involvement in this year's program is important to its continuation. After outstanding participation by many newspapers during the first years of Time-Out, participation recently dropped off to as few as a dozen newspapers.

APME plans to continue to work with other journalism organizations to find ways to rejuvenate interest in Time-Out or to launch a totally new program.

While we have identified immigration issues as a focal point for this year's program, newspapers are welcome to take other approaches that are appropriate for their markets and newsrooms.

Please select someone in your newsroom to serve as Time-Out coordinator and ask that person to send information on your work, including links to coverage and PDFs, if they are available, to cstovall@pressconnects.com or mporto@delawareonline.com by June 21.

A reminder: Time-Out's definition of diversity is inclusive of age, gender, race or ethnicity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, religious preference and physical ability.