The Authoritative Voice of #NewsMedia Since 1884
NEWSPAPERS | BROADCAST | DIGITAL
NEWSPAPERS | BROADCAST | DIGITAL
Are you afraid of the perception of others or have some irrational fear of ineptness? Perhaps you’re intimidated or worried that you won’t be able to relate to or have honest conversations with someone who doesn’t look, sound or think as you do. If so, please know that it's simply an illusion. Competency, ambition, hard work, instinct and ability aren’t tethered to gender, ethnicity, age or cultural background.
Since The Diversity Pledge Institute launched in 2021, it has placed dozens of journalists in newsrooms across the globe — and none of them have quit their jobs yet. According to the Society for Human Resource Management, it can cost a company up to nine months of an employee's salary to replace an employee who quits. However, the business case for diversity extends beyond the costs of recruiting and training.
Members of the LGBTQ+ community want reporting to reflect reality; the community is diverse, vast and full of positivity. Hanging on to stereotypes can have detrimental implications because the problems faced by those who do not fit that mold are often overlooked.
Ryan Sorrell and his team at The Kansas City Defender rely on two methods to reach young people. First, they know that each social media platform has a different ethos, so they personalize content for each brand. Second, they have a broad content mix, blending hard news and culture stories with headlines such as “10 Best Black-Owned Restaurants.”
Promises made in 2020 created headwinds, but not nearly enough of the transformative change we need to see on TV screens, in newspapers, on airwaves and in the rooms where decision-making happens. The bottom line is this: The coverage you provide and the communities you prioritize reflect how you truly embrace diversity.
For the past few years, there has been an emphasis on increased diversity and inclusion efforts across all industries. Journalism outlets have responded through various avenues: crafting statements of commitment, offering workshops and training, developing source trackers and inclusion indexes and engaging with survey work. However, these initiatives still fall into the same traps that have stifled growth and understanding in this area.
If Dr. Jelani Cobb could gather everyone into his Columbia University lecture hall, he would speak on journalism’s role in democracy during political turbulence and how journalism came to function in tandem with democracy. “I think that’s a question that has renewed salience,” he said.
Andrew Ramsammy spends his days on the business side of media doing strategy, partnerships and revenue generation for things like Word In Black and the Knight x LMA BloomLab at the Local Media Association. And, he's usually the lone non-white person in the room. Business folks, he says, "should get the same attention and support we put into our rallying cry for greater editorial diversity. You can’t have great journalism if you don't have a great business."
As the publisher and CEO of Afro-American Newspapers, Dr. Frances “Toni” Draper is both a news innovator and a steward of a Baltimore-based family legacy spanning 130 years. Her great-grandfather, John Henry Murphy, started the newspaper 130 years ago with just $200 he borrowed from family members. Today, the Afro-American — or just “The AFRO” — focuses on local news for Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and the suburban-Maryland corridor in between.
