The news media has always been a white male dominated field. For years the voices of blacks, Hispanics and women were not heard in TV or in print.

And it’s not much better today. According to a Screen Actors Guild study on the pbs.org Web site, 92 percent of television news directors are Caucasian and 80 percent of all news directors are men. The average number of minorities on staff is a little more than 8 percent.

The mission of the Freedom Forum Diversity Institute at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., was to get more minority voices in the media. I was a member of its inaugural class in 2002. My classmates and future students were a cross section of men and women from different ethnic backgrounds from across the country.

It was a rewarding experience. I made many friends and got to meet several notable people in the news field.

One of those people was Wanda Lloyd.

Wanda was the founding executive director of the Freedom Forum Diversity Institute. Currently, she’s the executive editor of the Montgomery Advertiser in Alabama. I also consider her a friend.

Wanda’s resume is impressive. She was a Pulitzer Prize judge and a senior editor of USA Today among other things. But part of what inspired us at the institute was how Wanda, being a black and a woman, was able to rise through the ranks of journalism by sheer hard work and determination. She led by example. Being a minority on two counts never stood in her way.

Wanda and a few other notable news women share their struggles and triumphs in a new book entitled “The Edge of Change: Women in the Twenty-First-Century Press.”

The 360-page book is described as a “powerful and complex assessment of how women are transforming the news industry.” It contains close to 40 essays from leading female newspaper journalists, editors and executives, across the country. The book focuses on the influence American women have had on the news industry as well as takes a look at the future for women in news.

Besides Wanda Lloyd, some of the other contributors include: Catalina Camia, Kathleen Carroll, Pamela J. Creedon, Paula Lynn Ellis, Helen E. Fisher, Dorothy Butler Gilliam, Ellen Goodman and Sharon Grigsby.

Wanda and I have kept in contact through the years, so I decided to give her a call about the book.

She told me that she and a group of women began working on “The Edge of Change” more than five years ago. Time was an issue, she said. For months the contributors only got together through weekly phone calls. But the labor was worth it.

“We only met a few times in person,” Wanda said. “We met once at the Poynter Institute in Florida, and we later decided to donate all proceeds from the book to Poynter so they can offer scholarships to women journalists. We want more women to have an opportunity to get training to move them forward in the profession.”

Kay Mills, author of “A Place in the News: From the Women’s Pages to the Front Page,” wrote the cover notes for the book.

She described it as “A much-needed update of existing books on women in the press. The richness of this work lies in its use of accomplished women’s own voices to tell of their achievements and their struggles, even into the twenty-first century.”

I haven’t read the book yet but I know if Wanda is a part of it, it’s truly an inspiring work. We always need new voices.

Alonzo Weston can be reached at alonzow@npgco.com.