What we lose without Diversity in the Newsroom

What we lose without Diversity in the Newsroom

John Steitz

js810618@ohio.edu

john.steitz.ou@gmail.com

Source: https://www.thejuggernaut.com/newsroom-diversity

    According to an article from The Guardian, as of 2017, only 16.6% of journalists working at daily newspapers were people of color. The same article reveals via statistics that a staggering 79% of the publishing industry is white- a figure that far outweighs what could be considered normal levels of representation in our field. 

    Stuffing our newsrooms with employees from similar backgrounds who share similar perspectives and experiences may seem like a good idea to some, but what gets lost in the shuffle is a newsroom's ability to report on specific stories within one's community and a lack of adequate perspective that is needed to cover stories that occupy spaces one may be unfamiliar with. 

    Having diversity in the newsroom isn't just beneficial for the people being hired to fill in those gaps in perspective and experience, it also benefits the media organizations who hire them. In a Nieman Lab article on race and the newsroom, Clark Merrefield introduces the concept of us-and-them reporting. This concept refers to the overwhelming whiteness of media and newsrooms in America, and how media organizations consider their audience. 

    A quote from journalist Soledad O'Brien elaborates further in the same article, stating "everyone from architecture critics to real estate writers, from entertainment reporters to sports anchors, talk about the world as if the people listening or reading their work are exclusively white." This is of course, fundamentally untrue. The people listening to and reading our work are not exclusively white, and to cover stories anywhere in this country it would behoove one to assume the exact opposite. 

    My point comes down to this- staffing our newsrooms without regard for diversity and assuming that our readers are white are two major symptoms of a broken media system that badly needs to be retooled. As journalists and media professionals, ignoring the perspectives and experiences of our own readers is a terrible disservice to them. Stacking the racial makeup of our newsrooms leaves us unable to accurately report on events within our community, which not only estranges our readers but hurts our ability as writers to find the truth and report it accurately, without injecting personal bias. 

    Diversity in the newsroom is of the utmost importance, both as a way of connecting with readers and the community at large and as a means of upholding the journalistic standards that we adhere to. How could one expect to accurately report on one's community if their newsroom looks nothing like the neighborhood right outside their door? As media professionals, our differences make us stronger- and it's up to us to reflect the communities we serve both in terms of diversity and perspective.