Description

One of CIC's primary activities was to hold biweekly meetings called "community dialogues" to discuss broad issues such as racism, police sensitivity, education, and employment discrimination within the city of San Diego. Much of this meeting focused on the perceived failure of the media in San Diego to provide equitable and unbiased coverage of the happenings in the African-American and Mexican-American communities, such as the displacement of 14 Mexican families in La Jolla, after their homes were bulldozed. Newspapers made no mention of the story. Representatives from the Mexican-American community specifically addressed concerns about advertising practices that stereotype minority groups and demonstrate insensitivity, and asked for the support of the CIC in backing their actions to make a presentation to and dialogue with the American Association of Advertising Agencies, and the Public Relations Society of America. In addition to complaints of the insensitivity of the press, some attributed the problem to a total lack of minority-group reporters to represent their communities. Media, and particularly the San Diego Tribune, generally claimed to have had little success in recruiting minority journalists, in spite of efforts to provide scholarships to attract more students of journalism, because local colleges do not select minority-group members as recipients of these funds. It was suggested that scholarships only be made available to schools with equal representation of minority students in their programs, and also to keep the funding in the local colleges, as opposed to funding students in the far cities of New York, Detroit, Chicago and Washington. General Victor Krulack made an appearance at the meeting, offering to lend his influence by addressing his colleagues with the local newspapers. Finally, it was resolved to follow through with people who had made offers to assist, and to report on those actions at the next meeting. The meetings were moderated by CIC Executive Director Carroll Waymon, and his voice is often the first one heard in the audio recordings of the meetings. The tape constitutes the minutes, but a summary, dated (believed to be mistaken) "2/14/68," consists of 6 pages of handwritten notes on stenographic-notebook paper with tape-recorder-counter numbers on the left (003-570). The names of speakers are on the right, with notes about actions and affiliations on the right.