22. Gannett: Getting An Early Start If you're a talented teen interested in journalism, they'll find you and groom you.
By Ronald B. Lieber

(FORTUNE Magazine) – This year's college graduates could not have arrived on the job market at a better time. The competition to hire was as fierce as it's ever been, and minorities were especially in demand. On most campuses you couldn't walk ten feet without running into recruiters for consulting firms dangling $50,000 packages in front of impressionable 22-year-olds. So how can a company that offers starting salaries half that amount possibly compete?

Gannett has found a way. It is reeling in talented minorities, even though the newspaper industry is notorious for low wages. In 1997, 17.5% of its "professional" employees were minorities. That figure, which includes the newsroom staff, is up from 8.1% in 1980. Gannett's strategy is simple: It seeks out candidates earlier than most industries. It targets people of color who show even a glimmer of interest in journalism, often while they're still in high school. Then it seduces them by talking up virtues unique to the newspaper industry (which have nothing to do with money). "There's a sense of mission in this profession, and that's something I try to tap into with the top students," says George Benge, a Native American who is executive editor of Gannett's Asheville Citizen-Times in North Carolina.

The prospect of breaking a big story has always inspired cub reporters. Gannett recruiters also appeal to the desire of many minorities to provide more balanced coverage of their own communities. The company doesn't waste time trying to persuade undergraduates who are aspiring stockbrokers to consider reporting about business instead. "I don't know what I can say to convince [them] to change their minds," says Caesar Andrews, editor of the Gannett News Service in Arlington, Va. "I'm not sure I'd want to."

Gannett's tactic of forging close ties with students early on can be rewarding for almost any company. Reporters and editors from the company's 82 daily newspapers nationwide speak to high school and college classes in their areas, keeping an eye out for talented minorities. They also critique school papers and invite students into the newsrooms to whet their taste for the job.

Nikita Stewart, a 26-year-old African-American reporter with Gannett Suburban Newspapers outside New York City, first encountered the company after her sophomore year in high school, when she was a Gannett-sponsored participant in a summer journalism workshop. Gannett turns up the heat on aspiring journalists once they reach their third year of college. It sponsors internships across the country, and its representatives are prominent at job fairs. Darryl Swint, a 29-year-old African American who is a graphic artist and page designer for the Detroit News, began working at that Gannett paper because of the efforts of an editor who first met him at a design conference in Kansas City. Later, the editor invited Swint to Detroit for a gathering of minorities in the design field. Nine months later he offered Swint a job.

Some companies struggle to attract minorities because they are located in areas of minimal diversity. Gannett, with papers in cities like Louisville, Montgomery, and El Paso, can be more flexible when offering new recruits a job. "Is there a place to eat soul food or get my hair cut?" asks Swint. "Things like that do a lot to make you feel comfortable." So does the fact that the job is more interesting than massaging spreadsheets, no matter how much you earn.

--Ronald B. Lieber