Diversity in Communication Industries

 By LINDSAY WIELONSKI

lw293117@ohio.edu

In many different areas of communications – advertising, news, public relations, and marketing – content produced has consistently fallen behind where it should be in terms of diversity and representation. According to a Pew Research Center analysis of the U.S. Census Bureau, newsroom employees are less diverse than U.S. workers overall. Newsroom employees are more likely to be white and male than all U.S. workers. This disproportion isn't just an issue in strictly the news field. In the public relations area, 82.6% of those working in PR and advertising in 2020 were white, according to Statista. Because so many companies are run mainly by white employees, marginalized voices often don't deserve the attention they deserve. In terms of diversity and inclusion, representation in staffing and content go hand in hand. They must work together to promote inclusion. 

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock 

In her article for The Atlantic, Lulu Garcia-Navarro noted that although the 2019 mass shooting in El Paso, Texas, targeted Latino people, many news outlets did not address this in their articles. Garcia-Navarro also mentioned that when she wrote the article, there was only one Latino on the New York Times' editorial board. Garcia-Navarro wrote about how it's unacceptable for a massacre to be needed for change to occur. 

"In the days since the El Paso shooting, we have seen more Latino journalists writing and appearing on television," Garcia-Navarro said in her article. "That's progress. But it took a massacre."

Representation is essential to customers. According to Marketing Charts, 62% of respondents say that a brand's diversity, or lack of it, impacts their perception of their products or services. For a customer to trust a company, a company needs to represent the voices of all of its customers. If ads only show a specific type of race, gender, sexuality, ability, etc., that can send the message that a company does not care about, including those not portrayed in its ads. 

Promises to implement more diversity and inclusion are meaningless if they are not accompanied by action. As we have discussed in class, some central ethical values in the communications field are truth, serving the public, and minimizing harm. If a company truly has a mission to serve the public and implement ethical standards, it needs to commit to portraying all voices accurately and fairly. Anything less would be a disservice to its customer base and the public as a whole.