By Malcolm Venable
AASFE Diversity Fellow

When veteran journalist Bob Ray Sanders got his first journalism job fresh out of college, the radical idea facing the industry then was hiring people of color. In fact, his father thought he was a bit daft in 1965 when Sanders said he wanted to work for newspapers: “Imagine how my father felt when he saw me on the front page of the paper,” he said. “I hadn’t shot any one, hadn’t raped anyone, I wasn’t in jail, but I had written something.” Decades later, Sanders wears a few hats at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, including columnist and associate editor. Yet newsroom diversity is just one concern he sees facing the industry now. In 2006, the industry is collectively wondering how to embrace technology like video and blogs and is even pondering its relevance as the 21st century marches on. Here’s what Sanders said about the future of newspapers after welcoming members of the American Association of Sunday and Features Editors Thursday morning:

Q: So we’re talking about how the industry’s changing in the 21st century. What ways have you seen it change?

A: I’m probably an old foge – I’m still into Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder. But it’s about involving young people in the paper, and more content aimed at young people. It’s more trend-oriented: a mix of news and trend stories. But we have to balance it. We get calls from some of our older readers and they’re like, who are these half-dressed women on the page? They’re America.

Q: How is the actual job of being a reporter changing?

A: People have to do different roles. There’s blogging, there’s TV…We’re equipping photographers not just with cameras but with video. Soon, many reporters will have cameras. We’re not just competing with newspapers, but also with TV and the Internet. We’ve got to be 24 hours.

Q: What three things would you say are key in shaping the industry in the 21st century?

A: It’s being available at any time. It’s being there when somebody wants us. It’s continuing to diversify. Not just in terms of race and gender, but also age and socio-economic background. We want people to bring everything they are. We can never be complacent again. We (Star-Telegram) are going through another redesign after just a year and a half. People are spending less time with the paper product. If people just have 15 minutes to open up a paper, then we have to figure out how to get as much as we can in those 15 minutes.

Q: Everybody’s trying to figure out how to net younger readers. Why do you think it’s proving such a challenge?

 A: I have a son that’s 19 years old, and it’s hard to get him to go to a library. Once I said, ‘You are going to go to this library and get a list of books for this report.’ I came back and found him on the computer in the library. They haven’t had to read - everything is instant. From their standpoint it’s sort of like: ‘A newspaper? Why?’

 Q: So how do you reach these people?

A: It’s crucial we don’t underestimate the intelligence of our younger readers. We should recognize that they know more than we think they do. We have to understand we’re talking to a very intelligent group of people and we shouldn’t talk down to them.

Q: Do you think there’s a sense of paranoia among the old guard at newspapers, that the industry might be collapsing?

 A: There is a sense of paranoia. There are people my age who are just waiting for retirement. The idea of another gadget scares them. They look at the circulation numbers and they think: ‘Are we losing them again?’ But you look at the corporate side and the fastest growth is coming from the web pages. We’ve been lucky at our papers because we had people who had the vision on how to start on it years ago. If you look at our website now, we have animation on there that can rival Disney.

Q: Is there any emerging theory on how newspapers might balance the physical product and their web presence like say, 70 percent is a web page and 30 percent is hard copy?

 A: I don’t know whether we can say that. I see a day when people won’t have the paper delivered to their lawn, but it will be in their homes, in their bedroom, at their fingertips whenever they want it.