For decades, the newspaper industry has struggled with the lack of diversity in its newsrooms and in its coverage. There has been much agonizing and lots of fits and starts about addressing the problems. And, in truth, some organizations have made progress. E.W. Scripps, the parent company of the Ventura County Star, wasn't one of them. A little more than a year ago, that changed when the company wisely agreed to partner with the National Association of Hispanic Journalists to launch the Parity Project.

The Star was fortunate to be selected as one of the founding newspapers to participate in the project. The purpose of the Parity Project is to assist newspapers in better covering the diversity of their communities. In The Star's case, the focus was on the Latino community. To that end, community meetings were held, a public advisory committee was formed, and a concerted effort to diversify newsroom staffing was initiated.

Tuesday night at a town hall in Oxnard, we received our first report card on how the Parity Project is working. Actually, we had some good news to report back to the community on how we were doing. Since joining the Parity Project, The Star has nearly doubled the number of Latino reporters and editors, jumping from 11 percent to about 20 percent. Latinos have assumed three top management positions at the paper and, as a pleasant bonus, hiring of Latinos throughout The Star has increased dramatically.

Other indicators of progress include more positive stories about Latinos and their communities, more in-depth stories about issues that are important to Latinos, and a broader representation of Latinos in all coverage. Also, The Star's source list has expanded significantly.

Students from Oxnard College taped the town hall meeting. Sitting under the hot television lights, which were far more uncomfortable than the criticism we received, I had to remind myself to emphasize that this was only a progress report and not an indication that we believed we had arrived at full diversity. And although the people who attended the meeting were generous in their praise of the efforts made by The Star, they were not reluctant in making sure that we understood there was still plenty of room for improvement.

In the weeks leading up to the town hall meeting, we conducted a survey, both in the community and in the newsroom, to gain an even better understanding of how we were doing. I found it interesting, and instructive, that we generally received higher marks from the community than from our co-workers. What we learned was that we haven't done a good enough job explaining to co-workers what the Parity Project is about and what we hope to gain from it. Some questioned our motives, while others felt threatened by it.

It was clear we have work to do there, too.

Although the Parity Project has helped us to do a better job of connecting with the Latino communities, and as a result provide improved coverage of those communities, it has proved to be beneficial in several other areas.

Since launching the Parity Project, our diversity staffing levels have grown across the board to include Asian-Americans, African-Americans and Native Americans. But far more importantly, our participation in the Parity Project has expanded our understanding of what diversity really means.

We no longer view diversity through the narrow prism of ethnicity. We have come to understand that we need to provide coverage that takes into account other communities, such as age, gender, socioeconomic status and communities of interest.

And in this process we are beginning to redefine the role of our newspaper. While we do not intend to forsake traditional coverage or abdicate our role as the public watchdog, we have come to understand that if we are to be vital to the communities we serve, we must cover all segments of our communities.

The Parity Project has helped us to see how we can better serve Ventura County as a newspaper. It has exposed some of our flaws and illuminated our opportunities. We are told that we are making progress, and some have expressed a genuine appreciation of the effort even if the results weren't what they had hoped they would be.

The Parity Project started out as a newsroom initiative but is now being extended companywide. Newspapers across the country have been closely watching what we've been doing here and are launching their own Parity Projects. It's gratifying to be part of an effort that is actually addressing a problem that has plagued our industry for so long.

It is important to remember, however, that we have only just started.

-- Joe Howry is editor of The Star. He can be reached at 655-5801 or by e-mail at jhowry@venturacountystar.com. He can be heard weeknights at 5:10 on KVTA 1520 AM.