Diversity in Media

Ally Campbell
ac076015@ohio.edu

Diversity in media means filling news staffs and leadership positions with people from all varieties of backgrounds. It means covering stories, equally and fairly, about people from all walks of life. It means recognizing different perspectives, including those stemming from race, class, gender, ethnicity and sexual orientation.

Journalism, in its current state, is seriously lacking diversity. Staffing is one major issue. As of 2013, only 13 percent of 36,700 newspaper journalists are people of color. In contrast, minorities make up approximately 37 percent of the United States population, according to 2013 U.S. Census Bureau data.

There is clearly a discrepancy in newsrooms. If 37 percent of the U.S. population is comprised of minorities, it should follow that the institutions covering that population is equally as diverse. Additionally, minority staff members should have access to decision-making power or leadership positions. Diversity in newsrooms elevates the quality and accuracy of the journalism they produce.

Staffing people from unique backgrounds opens the doors for more representative and diversified content. The same content may appeal to diverse audiences, help eliminate destructive stereotypes or hinder the pervasiveness of single-sided stories.

Language can also contribute to diversity representation in the media. How journalists speak about minorities affects how they are perceived by the general public. Consider how African Americans are depicted in the news versus how white people are represent in news media.

African Americans are disproportionately represented as criminals. African American represent 37 percent of criminals in the news, but only make up 26 percent of those arrested on criminal charges. On the other hand, the news portrays white people as criminals only 28 percent of the time, while FBI crime reports show they make up 77 percent of crime suspects.

In order to combat this misrepresentation, journalists can aim for more diversity in the newsroom and more holistic and representative coverage. It's time to put an end to the notion that all minorities fall into one stereotype. Stereotypes are just that, and journalists cannot ethically contribute to their preponderance.

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In addition to being conscientious about how journalists cover minorities and minority issues, it's essential to strive for accurate and fair representation. There is an ethical obligation for journalists to represent stories to the best of their ability and to minimize harm. That means that journalists must factor diversity into the equations.

It's no longer enough to interview one minority person for a story and call it diverse. Journalists must seek out issues and stories that are important to minority communities, then report them fully and accurately. For example, the general public is still very much in the dark about issues within the transgender community.

The most common coverage of the transgender community focuses on a transgender person's life pre-transition and their reassignment surgery. Coverage of Caitlyn Jenner's transition is a prime example. Her transition received high levels of news attention, but there was very little focus of the most pressing issues of transgender people.

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Coverage of the transgender community often fails to go into the intricacies of the community and the daily struggles of its members. Perhaps more relevant issues would be the high levels of violence against transgender people or the invasion of privacy they face when questioned about their decision to undergo or not undergo gender reassignment surgery.

Journalism truly has come a great way in respect to diversity, but there is still a large distance to go. Coverage can always be more diverse, equal and fair.

As journalists, it's our responsibility to strive for diversity. Journalists must fight for minority representation in the newsroom, portray diverse issues and stories and work diligently to discredit harmful stereotypes.

Report Diversity

Cassidy Selep
cs743115@ohio.edu

I was not surprised to read about the lack of equality within newsrooms and public relation firms. The American Society of News Editors conducted the 2014 Newsroom Census that found that "only 15 percent of daily newspapers surveyed in 2013 had a person of color in one of their top three newsroom leadership positions" (Stewart).

The article by Nieman Reports' Alicia W. Stewart provides examples of news organizations that have taken steps throughout the years to report on communities of color. I was pleased to see The Chicago Tribune's "Exploring Race" forum on the list. As a community member of the Chicagoland area, I was happy to see that the city was making efforts to cover communities of color; however, news organizations like The Chicago Tribune have to do more than only report.

Former columnist for The Chicago Tribune Dawn Turner explained that although communities of color are being covered more, the media has skewed the perception of these communities. I can agree with Turner that it is impossible to turn on the news channel and not be given the story of a shooting in a minority community.

Over the summer, I was more of an avid news watcher than I am during the school year. Around 9 a.m., I would turn on Chicago's Very Own WGN News and watch for about an hour. During that hour, I would see news on pop culture, sports and shootings in the area. There has only been one instance of reporting on communities of color in a positive light that I distinctly remember.

Around Town reporter for WGN Ana Belaval was shooting her segment in the Pilsen neighborhood, a majority Hispanic neighborhood. There were no set plans for her segment, so she randomly flipped a penny to determine what her segment would feature. She ended up at one of the offices for The Resurrection Project.

The Resurrection Project is an organization that helps community members with tasks such as affordable housing, immigration services and education programs. Services like this are vital to communities like Pilsen that are not only a minority community but are also under the stress of gentrification.

Photo courtesy of The Resurrection Project

I was inspired by this organization, and I could not wait to see what questions Belaval was going to ask. Not only was the segment short, half of it was taken up by Belaval explaining that she wanted to go to one of the panaderías nearby. I was disappointed in the segment and in Belaval.

Although reporters do not want to be pigeon-holed into reporting only on race and ethnicity, someone has to do it. While the rest of the newsroom waits in fear, the media needs reporters that are not afraid-- that are not uncomfortable-- with reporting on communities of color. Whether that reporter is a minority or a majority, race and ethnicity need to be covered in the media.

Know More, Say More

Murphy Patterson
mp385915@ohio.edu

Diversity in any aspect is good. It is good to be immersed in other cultures and it is good to meet and talk to people who have lived different lives then you. Diversity, however, can be overlooked especially in journalism. I think one reason why the conversation is not more prominent is because we are not as educated on the topic of diversity as we should be.

During a debate or just a conversation I keep my mouth shut when a topic that I don't have full knowledge on is being discussed. So maybe if we try and learn more about other races and different genders, the discussion will open up. Diversity matters, so journalists should take an initiative to educate themselves on what is going on around them. More knowledge about the world will lead to better story telling. With more knowledge journalists will also feel more comfortable covering stories that maybe are controversial. Discussing controversial topics is nerve-racking, but when you have knowledge on the topic you can speak your mind without feeling inferior.

 Race is usually seen as a touchy subject in the media. People are hesitant to talk about it or to talk to others about it in fear of offending someone or saying the "wrong" thing. If you are white and you want to talk about race, then people may think "they don't get it" because they are not in the minority. If you are a minority and talk about race, then your voice is not heard enough. Which is why learning about racial struggles will better help open up the conversation and make it less awkward.

                                                           Photo via: Home Fundraising

Diversity should be more prioritized in businesses, especially in the journalism business. Journalists tell stories about people. Having a diverse group of people to work with and bounce ideas off not only exposes people to different genders and races, but exposes people to different ways of thinking and different mindsets. If people continue educating themselves on diversity and race relations, then more dialogues about different topics can open up in the workplace.

Journalists should not feel afraid to speak up. That is our job, isn't it? If we are constantly worried about speaking on certain subjects, then how can we get our stories across? We need different perspectives in journalism, we need free thinking in journalism and we need diversity in journalism. Journalists go out of their way to talk to people and find stories to tell. Maybe journalists should put a little more focus on going out of there way to someone who doesn't look like them. Learning different cultures and gaining more knowledge of the world can never hurt.

They say that knowledge is power. So what is the harm in learning all you can? Listen to people and learn what they have been through. Ask a lot of questions and be open to the answers. Never shy away from diversity and be confident in discussing it. Educate yourself, and then go out and write the best story you can that all races and genders want to read. Expand your audience because diversity is important.

How Diversity Benefits Everyone

Jake Wernick
jw912314@ohio.edu

As someone who has taken specific time to make a group more diverse, the article "Why Newsroom Diversity Works" by Alicia W. Stewart stood out to me. In the fall semester of 2017, I decided to start my own student-run magazine, The Mess. As pop-culture is a particular passion of mine, I noticed that there were not any other student organizations that I could join to pursue this passion. Therefore, I decided to take it upon myself to create this opportunity for both myself and others like me. I started by recruiting some of my closest friends, and from there, they did the same. As we began producing content, we realized one thing; we wanted to be the voice of everyone, but looking at our staff members, we did not have representation of everyone. We had some diversity as far as ethnicity goes, but we were a group of primarily men, despite having made efforts to recruit females in the past. Therefore, we were not only missing out on the opportunity of having different ideas being brought to the table, but also missing out on many content ideas, particularly with women's style. Therefore, we were missing out on catering to a very large demographic that could be avid followers of ours. Once we realized how big of an issue this was, we started to think of new ways that we could recruit, specifically, ways that would appeal to women students at Ohio University. Through blast emails, organization fairs, stickers, flyers, and word-of-mouth, we were able to add more women members to our staff in time for fall 2018, as we transitioned from a magazine to a media outlet.

Photo via: The Mess

Diversity is important in any group for many reasons. For one, appearing as though you are intentionally leaving a specific group of people out is not the best reputation to have if you want to be successful. Additionally, adding diversity adds the opportunity for different voices to be heard. Different groups of people have different life experiences, different tones, different opinions, and sometimes different interests. Having these things not only expands the breadth of things your group is able to do, but also makes you more marketable to a wider demographic. That being said, adding diversity to a group can only lead to more success.

Diversity was also important to us as many companies in similar situations to ours have had issues in the past due to lack of diversity. For example, Barstool Sports, a relatively new and popular blog, has caught some bad press for ways in which they have attempted to appeal to young men, while offending other groups of people. Though groups sometimes are still able to achieve success by being non-inclusive and/or offending certain groups of people, this is absolutely not the way we wanted to do it with The Mess, for moral reasons above all else.

Though The Mess has become much more diverse since its inception, we are still regularly working to come up with new ways to become diverse in all ways possible. As with investing and most other things in life, diversification is a major key in being successful.

Making the Media Represent Reality

Katherine Vermes
kv266915@ohio.edu

Diversity in newsrooms and other media organizations has increased steadily over the last few decades, but there is still a lot of room for improvement. The number of persons of color who work in journalism has been an amount that many companies are making an effort to emphasize and enhance, as an aspect of journalism that has become more important with the rise of the internet is for those working in news to reflect the audience being written for.

According to Nieman Reports, increased diversity in newsrooms has not meant there is more equal coverage in the news itself, as only 25 percent of African-Americans believe the news media represents their community honestly, and only 33 percent of Hispanics feel the same way. So, the problem is not simply solved by hiring more people of color, but it must translate into the stories being told and how those in minority communities are being portrayed to the public.

However, there is a still a larger issue in the matter of representation in public relations and advertising agencies. Even today, people of color trying to be hired in such businesses are faced with many more obstacles in landing a job than those who are white, despite having the same degree of education and experience. And a lot of this issue, according to Ad Age, can be traced to those who run the companies who "shy away from serious conversations about systemic racism" in the industry.

But despite being at different stages of fixing diversity in these different sides of communication businesses, each still needs to a better job of improving their representation of their audiences, on the job and in the media.

Representation on the Job

Minorities in media organizations offer many benefits to their companies, aside from just helping them meet diversity quotas. People from different backgrounds will inevitably have different points of view on issues affecting their readers, viewers and clients. Therefore, it is important to have reporters handle stories on social issues that they may have some experience with. If a story needs to explain a complex issue thoroughly, wouldn't it be beneficial for the reporter to be someone who understands it from their own life experiences?

Courtesy of Google Trends

And yet, despite the need for these other perspectives in stories, newsrooms can still do better. Just under 40 percent of news content, of more than 24,000 pieces analyzed by the Women's Media Center in 2017, "was credited to female journalists," according to NPR. In addition to this, only 15 percent of daily newspapers had a person of color in a top newsroom position in 2013.

I can even see the need for better diversity in my local newspaper, The Plain Dealer. According to Google Trends, the paper has not made much improvement from 2001 to 2017 in representing the diversity of its audience based on either gender or race.

Representation in the Media

The other aspect of diverse representation involves how minorities are portrayed to the public. It is important for news media to avoid stereotypes that unfairly group people of similar backgrounds together as being exactly the same as one another. People should be represented as they are in reality, not as they are in past representations or how others assume they are.

It is the responsibility of journalists to see past these stereotypes and to see minority communities as the individuals within them, both how they are similar to and different from each other. If the media want the public to trust them with how they are represented, they need to make an effort to fight against any underlying biases they may not even realize they have. These stereotypes must be recognized and moved past in order to properly represent an audience and ensure their trust.

Journalist and social media

Elijah Sweet
es008215@ohio.edu

As social media has grown, it is important that journalists are keep up with current events on social media because of how fast news appears there. Journalists should also realize how one single tweet can impact your future with a news outlet.

In Jemele Hill's case, it is very important to understand that a few tweets can cost a journalist their job. Jemele was taken off of SportsCenter and later bought out of her contract, after she tweeted comments against Donald Trump.

Picture by : Hollywood Reporter

As a black woman in America, Jemele thought it was important to voice her opinion against Donald Trump because she believes he is a "white supremacist". ESPN looked to get rid of Hill because they felt as a reporter for their station she should not state her political views because she is a media influencer.

Jemele Hill is not the only black female reporter to get fired after sharing something on social media.

According to Ebony, Lisa Benson, a reporter for Kansas City, Missouri's KSHB, was fired after sharing an article about white privilege. The article was about how white women play the victim while black women are more assertive.

It was later reported that two white women working at the station saw the Facebook post and reported her to HR. As reporters, it is important to remember that media outlets are not fond of their journalists giving their political views or post things on social media that maybe controversial.

However, journalists should still be able to speak their mind on social media using their personal accounts if they truly believe in something. Journalists are people who have opinions and should be able to voice them as long as their intent is not to hurt the media outlet.

I understand that media outlets do not want their reporters expressing their opinion to a mass audience because they believe those opinions will reflect poorly on to them, but some reporters are going to give a stance against social injustice if they see it in their life.

This is the exact reason why media news outlets must promote diversity in the work place. Their should be many people from different racial and ethnic backgrounds in the newsroom so that people within those outlets are able to see all different viewpoints.

The more diversity is promoted, the easier it will be for everyone in the newsroom to see the social injustices different races go through. Since there will also be many more reporters that each can relate to, they may be not as scared give their story ideas when discussing what should be reported.

Hiring more diverse journalists, would also help news outlets to gain trust from more diverse audiences through social media. The Knight Foundation reported that their is a fractured relationship between social media subcultures and media outlets.

This relationship maybe able to be fixed if media outlets hired more diverse journalists that interacted with people on social media. Then different racial groups would be able to see that those journalists are able to relate to the same social injustices.

Journalists must always pause before they post on social media because they should understand their opinion can impact public perception. Although, reporters should be able to speak out when they see social injustice in their life.

Diversify the World of Media

Jacquez Printup
jp583215@ohio.edu

We've heard time and time again from numerous people that "racism doesn't exist anymore." Or that "it is not that big of a deal." But the reality is that there is still racial tension amongst different parts of the world. Although, there has been progression in the world, there are still active steps that can be taken.

Courtesy of Getty Images

Some areas of racism may be more apparent than others, but there is one place where concealed racism really thrives: the workplace. There are countless real-life stories that recount the experiences that several African-American men and women have all had to face head on while trying to exist in corporate America. In fact, I've even had conversations with some of these people that share about how they always have to be "on" when they are at work to avoid the possible consequences that could come from not doing so. There is an article that goes into detail providing examples that explain exactly what I'm talking about. This writer shares about how uncomfortable she feels when she steps into an elevator with her mainly white counterparts and can feel their eyes locked onto her as they stare her up and down. Or about how she feels pressure to make sure her hair is not too "ethnic" or in other words, natural, when she sits down at her desk. A prime example of this would be Jemele Hill who was suspended by ESPN after making suggestive tweets about President Donald Trump.

The fight for equality in the workplace is challenging, and the fight in the classroom for some African-American students is equally as hard. Adam Williams, a black engineering student at Purdue University shares about the struggles and hardships he has faced while being a minority student at a PWI (predominately white institution) and in a difficult major. Unfortunately, all of the feelings and emotions that Adam describes himself as having in some of these moments, a lot of other black students have felt the exact same way.

Mentioned in one the above articles, the writer talks about a scene from the fictional television show Scandal that used to air on ABC. In the scene, Olivia Pope played by Kerry Washington is having a conversation with her father who reminds her of a simple truth that himself, along with a lot of other black parents have shared with their children from a very young age: you have to be twice as good to get half.