The Problem with Newsroom Diversity

Emma Stefanick

es421018@ohio.edu

Inequality, whether it be by race, religion or sex, has always been a factor in society since the very beginnings of time. Native Americans were forcibly removed from their homes in the late 19th century after Andrew Johnson's Indian Removal Act, African American slavery didn't end until 1862 (243 years after it began), the 19th amendment, which granted women the right to vote, didn't pass until 1920 and the gender pay gap, or the difference between a man and woman's pay, is still, at best, a woman's 80 cents to a man's dollar. 

Picture source: Time.com

These inequalities, and many more, are the foundation of the world that we live in today. History laid the path for white, cis-gender men to walk; it kissed at their feet and caressed their egos. And whether you want to believe it or not, the facts maintain that society is still denying equality and equity to minority groups, most often in the workplace. 

This should come as no surprise. We've known this for years as we continue to baffle ourselves on how to eliminate the perpetuation of work discrimination and internal biases of our workforce. But what's even more concerning is that the newsroom specifically has failed this task. Take a look at these survey results collected by the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University. 

Pictures' source: Niemanlab.org

These graphs depict the gender and race ratios of six major national newsrooms. All newsrooms that completed the survey appear to be predominately white. The LA Times is considered the most racially diverse newsroom, but even then, it is sitting pretty at 65% white. Gender breakdown for these newsrooms rests at 2/3 predominately male, with only NPR and PBS Newshour having more women to men. 

If that's not startling enough for you, according to the Pew Research Center, 77% of newsroom employees, including reporters, editors, photographers and videographers in newspaper, broadcasting and digital platforms, are non-Hispanic white people. Compare that to the 65% of non-Hispanic white people found in all occupations across the United States. 

This is a major problem. The goal of journalism as a whole is to provide public information that fairly represents, includes and aids groups and viewpoints in a community, but it's nearly impossible to include diverse perspectives that speak to all audiences if your newsroom reflects mostly white, male perspective. Why should white men be the ones making decisions about what news is relevant to minority communities that they themselves know nothing about? Accurate news comes from people of all backgrounds, classes, races, sexes, authority and power. 

The newsroom needs to diversify. And I'm not talking about the abstract, overused, wishy-washy concept of diversity that we know today. Our modern day idea of diversity is annual non-bias training and hiring more women, African Americans, Latinx, LGBTQ+, Hispanic, immigrant or whatever it may be to meet a ratio of minority to white, a quota for show, so that someone will give you a pat on the back and say, "You're diverse now, congrats." 

As if that will abolish the inequality carved deep into society's brain grooves. 

"Everybody is quick to do unconcious bias training and not interventions. When you keep choosing the options on the menu that don't create change, you're purposefully not creating change," said civil rights lawyer Cyrus Mehri in an interview with Time.

Drawing attention to our differences doesn't unite us as a whole, but rather it makes us as separate but equal. We're all humans doing the same job, yet we're separated by our reasons for being hired, our pay and even the beats we can cover or our leverage in the newsroom. Sound familiar? 

There is no clear recipe to bake a diversified newsroom. But what we're currently doing just isn't tasting right. We can't keep expecting our pledges, trainings, ratios and gallavanting mantras to magically fix our inequality. The newsroom perspective won't change unless we make the conscious effort to diversify. Isn't it about time we start?