Summer in the City, 1968-74.

America's post-riot era was a time of unfulfilled expectations for those concerned with newsroom staffing. The Kerner Commission said blacks should be trained, hired, and promoted in mainstream media, yet few news managers moved beyond tokenism to diversify what had been a white domain. In 1968, broadcaster Fred W. Friendly crafted a summer program at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism that would graduate 223 minority trainees over seven years. Some became reporters, news anchors, media executives, and producers, although many left journalism for other careers. In a study more than thirty years after the project closed, participants discussed what they saw in newsrooms during this era of social change, and their recollections reflect the idealism that fueled this early effort in media hiring reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]