Diversity Lacks in the Newsroom: Steps Need to be Taken for a Better Workplace

 Payton Szymczak 

ps692718@ohio.edu

notyap5968@gmail.com

As the topic of diversity rises in our country, the workforce must take steps to increase diversity. This goes for newsrooms in order to improve statistics and accurate content. 

As explained in the article, Race and the newsroom: What seven research studies say, an article on NiemanLab, an entire three quarters of employees in the newsroom are non-Hispanic white, and about half of the newsroom staff are white males. The current statistics are far below what the diversity percentage should be in the newsroom. 

The topic of diversity has been rooted in fear for a long time. The way that not just the newsrooms but every community in our country as a whole views diversity needs to change. As explained on NiemanReports, an article, Journalists Must Train Their Brains to See Beyond Stereotypes explains the issues involving diversity in the newsroom accurately. The article explains that if there is a more diverse newsroom and more detailed stories including racial topics, it will help train people's brains to see people of color as individuals, and not continue to view them as types. 

                                                Source: MediaShift.org

This topic and goal of achieving a strong diversity rate in the newsrooms has been a struggle for far too long, and if steps are not taken to surpass this issue, it will continue to suffer. Also explained on NiemanReports, the article Journalists Must Train Their Brains to See Beyond Stereotypes explains how journalists need to work and move beyond the standard, and if they do not work towards a goal, more harm will be done than good. 

Inclusion in the newsroom is important. An accurate example of the lack of diversity in the newsroom is featured and discussed on The Guardian in an article, When newsrooms are dominated by white people, they miss crucial facts. This article features a description about a white journalist that wrote a story about a neighborhood that was mainly black and Latinx. The story described in itself the issue representing how the demographics in American newspapers do not match the demographics in the communities being covered in their stories. 

With a new involvement of diversity in newsrooms throughout America, not only will statistics improve, but the stories themselves will improve. Representation of every individual is important in creating accurate content of communities being written about. When there is more diversity in the newsrooms, stories about communities with diversity will be more accurate and believable for readers.