How Diversity Becomes Mainstream and the Unintended Problems that Arose

Marc Anthony Brown 

mb802117@ohio.edu

Despite the image being hard to imagine, there was a period where the news and media was dominated by white audiences and newsrooms not too long ago. These hubs of information never seemed to want to include or focus on non-white news and information. 

This resulted in many POCs individuals feeling alienated in the media. Today, we live in a very diverse and progressive time where people of all backgrounds are allowed to participate in the news. The stories can be told and shared across television, print, and social media. However, this does not mean news today is perfect. There is still a disconnect between diversity and how to tell those stories. 

American History has a slew of key points where news and information boomed/flourished. One of those moments came as a result of The Great Migration. It was a period in the early 20th century where a vast number of African-Americans from the south migrated to northern cities in search of new opportunities. One of the outcomes of this migration was the development of black newspapers. 

These newspapers focus solely on black stories and ideas that would have never been covered in white mainstream papers. This new perspective from Black journalists allowed for a more personable perspective on stories for Black people. Black audiences felt as if their stories were being told and represented through these black newspapers. 

Today there is an obvious integration between black stories and white stories. However, criticism often arrises with the portrayal of Black people in the media. How their stories might not be as indepthly covered as a white individual or certain descriptions or stereotypes might be perpetuated through the media. 

For example, a common criticism is how people of color who commit crimes often portrayed as potentially having an instigator to the crime, whether that be a minor infraction in their past or a social media post taken out of context. According to Pew Research Center, Black individuals are the most underrepresented people in the newsroom. 

The disparity this causes is quite large - in a similar research, Pew Research Center found that many hispanic households watch a news through television. More importantly there was in uptick in news consumption through channels like Telemundo and Univision from 2016-2020 during the Trump Presidency. A period where facts about Latinx people was skewed to fit controversial narratives with no latinx voice to speak up. 

Source: pewresearch.org

This disconnect is not just targeted at POCs in the newsroom and the news they consume. Rather in this new age of social media, algorithms and companies tailor their ads to have negative impacts on whichever group they choose. ProPublica reported in 2016 that Facebook had allowed certain advertisers to exclude users of color from seeing certain ads. 

The ads in question were for houses with certain demographics filtered out to prevent potential sales, violating a slew of laws like The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Fair Housing Act of 1968. This violation causes mistrust in these systems and organizations. 

As more mainstream stories focus on black and brown people, there is a need for more POCs to tell those stories. Not to say that these stories are gate-kept by individuals of certain races, but because the information deserves to have the proper representation that could elevate these stories. 

In a time where mistrust in the news is at an all-time high, having a more personal experience can help assist in alieving that gap. Having people who look like the audience they are delivering information to creates a connection. And with that connection, trust can more easily form and heal.