Lack of diversity in the newsroom

Kaysee Faecher
kf378616@ohio.edu

Diversity within the PR and Journalism industry has been a hot topic of conversation for a long time. Most people would then proceed to tell you that nothing has been done to change the lack of diversity. No action has been taken to resolve it. There is an extreme lack of minorities in the newsroom. This has been an issue in the journalism industry for decades, yet there has been no solution. Some may say the issue has gotten worse. The Guardian states, "'Diversity' is often partnered with the word "inclusion" in our racial vocabulary." The lack of diversity in the newsroom is painfully obvious. According to the Knight Foundation, "The 2017 census showed that people of color made up 16.6 percent of those newsrooms surveyed." Within all the articles about diversity in the newsroom, they all say the same thing: We know it is a problem, but have not done anything to fix it.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/11/02/newsroom-employees-are-less-diverse-than-u-s-workers-overall/

With the lack of minorities in the newsroom, there also begins to be a lack of trust. Thus, it begins a domino effect of the questioning of the trust and credibility of journalists. There continues to be an increase in stories that revolve around racial issues. A lot of these stories are being written by white males, who tend to report the issue on their terms. John Henry states, "Every different group brings something new and valuable. That's why it's so important. And it can also establish a rapport with people with a particular background that an outsider can't."

Journalists must train themselves to see past stereotypes, whether than be a race, gender, sexuality, or social class. The Nieman Reports says, "We must ask ourselves: What role do we play in all of this when we constantly barrage our viewers and readers with images of black men as criminals? The repetition of these images has conditioned all of us (including police officers who carry weapons) in ways that make it difficult not to view black men and boys as dangerous." As journalists, we need to steer past the stereotypes of a story and focus on the truth.

Rebecca Frank says, "New organizations have large audiences to serve, including their readers and their own staff. Committing to creating more diverse workplaces can benefit both groups." We owe it to our readers to put out content that represents all people in our community in an accurate and honest way.

Race is a difficult topic for journalists to cover because they fear what the public will say, but it is something that needs to be covered. There are issues surrounding race that happen every day that the public needs to know about. We talk heavily about how the media is constantly losing more and more trust with their audience because of fake news. What we don't talk about is the lack of minority journalists who write about minority issues. Everyone knows it is an issue, but no one does anything about it. We need to become more aware of the issues at hand and hire more minority journalists to cover real-life stories about real-life issues when it comes to the minority injustice in this country.