Lily Biros
lb526018@ohio.edu
Amidst COVID, racial inequalities and the injustices of this year, emotions and opinions are at an all-time high. People are constantly critiquing the biases of a newspaper's claims, so the establishment of a diverse newsroom and team have become increasingly important. In the past however, the media hasn't viewed diversity as an important aspect to news coverage, and therefore, has created many problems for themselves. Without diversity and a broad spectrum of viewpoints, the media tends to stray away from important facts. According to The Guardian, an example of this instance is from a story published from The New York Times. This story covered the reactions of people who were living in a neighborhood where a robbery took place. The people refused to give the robbers their loose change and in return, were criticized for it. However, the real point of the story should have focused on the poverty in the area where a few dollars meant the world to someone. This instance, even though the facts were correct, the reporter should have taken into account the reasons for why people do what they do instead of criminalizing the victims. If the reporter or the newsroom had been more diverse, then the editor or another writer could have informed them about a different viewpoint in the story. According to Nieman Reports, this phenomenon can be attributed to a writer's own stereotypes. They state, "but, in order to have a substantive discussion about newsrooms, race, and how we cover these stories, we in the media must turn the lens on ourselves and acknowledge our complicity in these tragedies". Newsrooms cannot blatantly disregard that biases exist, they must instead evaluate everyone's viewpoint through conversation and understanding.
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| Source: CNN |
Diversity is essential, especially in today's climate due to social media and the internet. Because of this, people like to claim that their newsroom is diverse and that everyone on their team is qualified for the job. However, how many people do they give opportunities to? According to The Guardian, they state, "we like to think we are staffed by people who have the skills to get the job done. This is often the case. But it leaves a question unasked: how many people who have the skills to do this work never even get the opportunity to try?" This sheds light to an even bigger issue in which people need to be given an opportunity to be able to share their opinions. If people want diversity in the newsroom, they must have diversity in the job hunt. If people want unbiased stories, they must acknowledge that they exist. Change begins with conversation and diversity begins with opportunities.
Hi Lily, I loved your blog. You hit the nail on so many important ideas, especially reading this as a person of color. While newsrooms are slowly becoming more diverse, there is still much work to do. Just this summer, I watched a segment on CNN about the psychological reasons why tailgaters and sports fans (mostly white men) were becoming increasingly violent and destructive around the time of the basketball season. The panel consisted of majority-white doctors (I believe one was Asian). They discussed mental disorders that would explain why people were fighting in stadiums and destroying public property on city streets. I thought this was incredibly frustrating because when protests were going on months before in the same cities, psychiatrists weren't interviewed by national media sources. Those people were labeled "vandalist," "thugs," and "animals" for advocating for their civil rights and their lives. It seems like there are still many major news outlets that favor white men over minorities. When there are traumatic and painful events affecting entire groups, they deserve to be covered with sensitivity, ideally by journalists of similar backgrounds.
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