Diversity in Journalism

Molly Glaze

ASNE, Americas Society of News Editors, recently reported statistics on the diversity in journalism. In 2016 it was reported that only 17 percent of the workforce are non-white journalists. This means that the content being released as journalists is produced by more than 80 percent of white culture. The public is receiving their content from one category of race. The content we create is being limited because of the lack of diversity in the journalistic field. But why does this matter? Why is journalism so important?

Diversity isn't only important in terms of inclusion and being accepting of those different from yourself. Diversity is important for knowledge and understanding of other cultures, other events around the world, it's important in terms of allowing yourself to view the world from different perspectives. One should not limit themselves to a single perspective, there are endless ideas and information that needs to be shared. Allowing ourselves to accept content from one culture is not expanding our growth of ideas. 

With diversity, we are able to broaden our understanding of other individuals. Martin Luther King Jr. said, "There is nothing more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." Unfortunately, the lack of diversity comes with ignorance. Diversity can benefit us in many ways and the fact that we aren't using it to our advantage, is ignorance, it's stupidity, and it is irresponsible as a journalist to be ok with it. From a journalistic perspective, our audience deserves better, they deserve content that comes from a wide range of communities, cultures, or organizations. Instead we are limiting our information, we are limiting our knowledge, we are limiting our experience, more importantly, we are limiting this all for our audience. 

An excerpt from Martin Luther King Jr. "I have a dream" speech

Diversity is important in more ways than one. It isn't only about the inclusion of minority groups, it is coming together with minority groups and sharing our knowledge, our ideas, as one. Diversity shouldn't be acknowledging that we are different or come from different places with different experiences. It should be accepting those minority groups and welcoming their thoughts and their opinions, using their experiences to our benefit, to better our knowledge to better our understanding of this world and everything it has to offer.