I asked my media ethics students today to think about diversity in newsrooms — what it is, why it matters and how news organizations can foster it at a time when there’s not a whole lot of hiring going on. I took notes, and I thought you’d be interested to see some of their ideas.
How would you define diversity in news?
- Ensuring that members of marginalized communities are properly represented.
- Encompassing a broad range of diversity — not just race, ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation but a diversity of opinion, age and life experience.
- Aiming for diversity not just inside the newsroom but in the people we seek out for interviews.
- Understand that though journalists are supposed to keep their political beliefs out of their coverage, a range of views matters because it informs the way we approach our work.
How can a news organization benefit from diversity?
- Reporters can interact more effectively with organizations that represent different groups such as African Americans or the LGBTQ community.
- A diverse newsroom can ease polarization by representing a wider range of voices, thus enhancing democracy.
- A diverse newsroom will set a different tone than one that is predominantly white and male.
- There is less chance of underrepresented groups being mischaracterized in stories.
How can newsrooms become more diverse in an era of financial constraints on hiring?
- Thorough DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) training for the reporters who are on staff can be helpful even if the staff itself is not especially diverse.
- News organizations should network extensively at organizations representing affinity groups such as Black journalists, LGBTQ journalists and the like so those contacts are already in place when hiring opportunities arise.
- Think about diversity in recruiting not just for your own news organization’s internal benefit but to serve the community better.
- Offer fellowships to young journalists of color to create a pipeline of people who could be hired when openings occur.
Pretty smart stuff, I’d say.
Bezos’ not-so-fine whine
Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos wrote a self-serving commentary in which he attempted to justify his last-minute cancellation of the paper’s Kamala Harris endorsement.
Among other things, he said that his decision, which he admitted was poorly timed, was aimed at helping to overcome distrust in the media, writing that endorsements help feed the perception of bias:
Our profession is now the least trusted of all. Something we are doing is clearly not working….
We must be accurate, and we must be believed to be accurate. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but we are failing on the second requirement. Most people believe the media is biased. Anyone who doesn’t see this is paying scant attention to reality, and those who fight reality lose.
Bezos’ take on media trust is facile and shallow. The top-line numbers tell us that public distrust of the media has been growing for a generation or two. In reality, though, that’s an artifact of media fragmentation. We all trust the media that we use; liberals and Democrats tend to trust mainstream sources like The New York Times, public radio and, until this past weekend, the Post. Today’s MAGA Republicans trust Fox News and Donald Trump himself. This analysis by the Pew Research Center is four years old, but you get the idea.
The steaming pile of trouble that Bezos just dumped on his paper is that the Post has morphed overnight from a news source trusted by its audience to one that is getting the side-eye from just about everyone.
David Folkenflik of NPR reported Monday that the Post had lost more than 200,000 of its 2.5 million digital and print subscribers in just 24 hours after the Harris endorsement was yanked. That’s on Bezos, and it’s certainly not a sign that his arrogant disrespect for the Post’s editorial board has done anything to engender trust. Quite the opposite.
A new editor at the Monitor
Whenever I want to read the news and not feel like my hair is on fire, I take a look at The Christian Science Monitor, a great news organization that inspires optimism and emphasizes solutions. It’s especially strong on international news, though it covers the U.S. as well.
Once a full-service newspaper, the Monitor has shrunk to a daily newsletter and a weekly newsmagazine aggregating some of the outlet’s best journalism. The Monitor is located down the street from us at Northeastern, and yes, I’m a paid subscriber.
The Monitor announced this week that a new editor will be taking over soon. Christa Case Bryant, a veteran Monitor journalist whose duties have included building up the digital side, running the Jerusalem bureau and covering Congress, will succeed Mark Sappenfield.
In 2009 I wrote a lengthy feature about the Monitor for CommonWealth Magazine (now CommonWealth Beacon) that gets into the paper’s history.