Diversity in the work place

Ashley Novak

Diversity in the work place has been a hot button issue in offices across America, not just in the realm of journalism. As America becomes a more diverse country, it should follow that the offices we inhabit should become equally as diverse, but that has not been the case. The first place where this lack of diversity can be combated is in higher education. The Society of Professional Journalists argue that professors need to be the one who lessen the drastic shock students face when they are put into the "diverse" work place.

Having to do an internship before graduation already exposed the majority of us to the work place and have experienced the diversity or lack thereof. Unfortunately, during my time as an intern, the presence of women was seen in the office, but ethnic diversity was minimal in the office I worked in.



I find it amazing that the media has not taken a bigger initiative to integrate the newsrooms if not solely based on the research that the non-white audiences are growing and have a bigger voice in what they want to see/read.

Farai Chideya from The Huffington Post says that American media needs to adopt a more diverse newsroom, which has been on the downturn in recent years. Even though it was only 0.15 percent in 2009, that little bit translates to a loss of a different perspective in the newsroom for different stories which can broaden the audience the paper or TV station reaches.

Since journalism has been boiled down to being a business, you would think that editors and owners would want to diversify their newsrooms even more instead of limiting what topics to cover.