jl390412@ohio.edu
Diversity in the newsroom is a hot topic lately as more and more journalists are being bought out or laid off as a result of the industry's recent recession. Due to the elimination of many positions within the field, the number of minority staff members do not represent the public population as a whole. This statistic has led to a public outcry for more representation in all platforms of news media.
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Minority Population Growing in America and Shrinking in the News Room
With the growth of the minority population in the United States up to 37%, the public feels that the news room staff should reflect the nation's diversity at stations and papers all over the country. As much as we would like to think that every Caucasian, male journalist in the country can report fair and honest news from every perspective, this is just not the case. We need a fresh pair of eyes and ears to report effective and newsworthy stories that hit home for people of all races and ethnicities. Without the addition of diversity in the newsroom, many minority citizens feel that the news does not pertain to them nor does it report stories that they would be interested in.
Students vs. Professionals
When students and professional journalists' work are compared to each other, we can see that students are actually better than the professionals at including people of multiple races and from many different backgrounds in their stories. This could be for a number of reasons. One reason could be that with the decline of diversity in reporting, professors and accredited universities are doing all they can to ensure that their students and the future of the journalism profession are using as many sources from as many different backgrounds as possible. If this is emphasized at the college level now, students will be more likely to carry this with them into the future. While the majority of the students are Caucasian, they do a very good job of including many sources in their stories and even more than that, many sources from different ethnicities and backgrounds. A second reason could be that the idea of diversity is much more emphasized at the college level. There are classes available to students that are purely on diversity in the newsroom. Many professional journalists believe that there are more important aspects to reporting a story than finding sources from all different walks of life.
Language Barriers
Beyond the idea of multiple perspectives comes the practical uses of having a diverse staff. Many times, a story that happens within a certain culture can present a challenge for a reporter who knows nothing about the background or the language of that culture. In this day in age, it is more vital than ever to have staff members who are able to communicate with people of all ethnicities because with the growing latino/a population, if there is no one on your team that can speak spanish, there will be many stories lost. Being able to speak and communicate with the people involved in a story gives so much more depth and meaning than trying to pull little pieces of information from the words that could be understood. Not to mention this could lead to misreporting, which is a whole other issue.
Make a Change
It is time for our newsrooms to represent the American population. This is not something that will just happen because we wish it to, it must be pursued and we must work hard for it. How would you feel if no one ever reported anything of interest to you? What if you were trying to tell your story to someone else and they could not understand you? These are the battles faced everyday and evidence as to why we need to diversify our newsrooms.
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