Deceptive Percentages in Journalism Misrepresent Diversity in North Carolina

All the signs of yet another Big Brown Invasion were there. Headlines had trumpeted a doubling of the population in North Carolina and three other Southern states. The Ku Klux Klan was marching in Siler City, N.C. The governor of the Tar Heel State had established an office for Hispanic/Latino affairs. I couldn't wait to see the numbers on this huge new population.

So imagine my shock when the Census Bureau estimated that Latinos were a mere 6.7 percent of the 8.9 million folks who live in North Carolina- or about 597,000 people.

Yup, what old newsies would have called an "ungot."

The important lessons to remember:Understand percentages, value accuracy and appreciate context.

Journalists love to employ percentages, which are often considered so much more interesting than numbers. But focusing on percentages can distort. If the baseline figure is small, even a modest increase in the total can yield a large percentage.

The percentage of Latinos in North Carolina increased by nearly 700 percent from 1990 to 2006. Why? Because there were only about 76,700 Latinos in the state in 1990 and nearly 600,000 by 2006, according to Census data. That's an increase of about 520,000 people.

Taken as a whole, the 2006 estimate of the Latino population statewide is just slightly larger than the total population of the state's biggest city, Charlotte, with about 541,000 residents.

During this same period of what seems like huge growth in the state's Latino population, from 1990 to 2006, the number of non-Hispanic whites increased by about 1,254,000 people -- more than twice as many as Latinos.

That's right: The white population grew more than the Latino population but the media coverage focused on Latinos. But because the white population stood at more than 6 million in 1990, the growth represented only a 25 percent increase.

The number of African Americans grew by 443,000, just behind the increase in Latinos. That amounted to a 31 percent increase over the 1,450,000 blacks in the state in 1990.

The explosive growth in the number of Latinos is news. So is the way their presence is changing communities, churches, schools, restaurants and what's on grocery store shelves. The media are affected too. Traveling south, you can listen to Spanish radio even before you cross the border with Virginia.

North Carolina and other Southern states, such as Georgia and Florida, are the Ellis Islands of 21^st century America. Fairness and accuracy require that journalists put these explosive percentages in context surrounded by explanation.

Bobbi Bowman, a longtime newspaper reporter and editor, is diversity director for the American Society of Newspaper Editors.

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