[Music]
back in 2012 a police officer George
Zimmerman had killed Trayvon Martin a 17
year old african-american high school
student this story had overtaken the
entire country and journalists across
the nation had reported on it furiously
this story I as a journalist I believe
that a dedication to presenting both
sides of the story is a commonality all
journalists should share however this
wasn’t the case for the story of Trayvon
Martin
there was a stark contrast and the types
of stories being reported here I have
two articles written within the same
week by three distinctly different
reporters one article was written by two
white men the other article was written
by one black man is it immediately
noticeable the difference in reporting I
want you to take a quick look at these
headlines and determine for yourself who
wrote which article
the black man highlighted the tragedy of
the event he discussed how the death of
any child was inexcusable he even talked
about how the police department had
failed to conduct a thorough
investigation and how that led to
political unrest across the country
whereas the two white men had decided to
write a story based off ingrained
stereotypes so often in the media we are
exposed to this image of black children
as thugs he was no saint they said but
that shouldn’t be the narrative why is
the media so quick to demonize black
individuals and in 2016
17% of journalists in u.s. newsrooms
were people of color and television only
10% of show runners were people of color
and 11.7% of those in radio were people
of color there’s a lack of diversity in
our newsrooms
and that is a cause for this disparity
in journalism there are so many stories
of African Americans that are worth
telling I’ve seen and heard them myself
but the majority of news presented in
the media fits this crime Center
narrative and that needs to change
because this not only affects African
Americans this affects all minority
groups there is an obvious skew on media
towards one perspective and it is a
white perspective and often it is even
more exclusionary as it’s a middle-class
male perspective people of color are
expected to make up more than half the
entire nation’s youth by 2020 and more
than half the entire population by 2040
for people like me but our voices aren’t
present in media so what does this
diversity look like in Columbus in order
to gauge how the City of Columbus fared
and representation in media I decided to
research the race of each individual
reporter and editor at the Columbus
Dispatch the Columbus Dispatch is one of
the most prominent papers in the City of
Columbus thus its staff should consist
of people that make up the racial makeup
of the city
and it’s ideas right well among all the
writers and editors creating content for
the city I found that 97 percent were
white 97 percent it is such an
outrageous number and it’s such a stark
contrast to the actual racial makeup of
Columbus Ohio almost 40 percent of
Columbus consists of minorities of
people of color but our primary news
source consists of zero percent
minorities it’s the expectation that our
newsrooms have 95 percent people of
color of course not but our expectation
is that our newspapers are conducting
the highest quality reporting and that
cannot be possible when there’s only one
perspective presented in your newsroom
when you have a diverse staff you have
people that are comfortable and
experienced talking about certain topics
and that produces better stories I
witnessed the sentiment in action when I
attended aaja high school journalism
camp
this past summer my peers came from a
variety of backgrounds varying from
different cultural practices and
following different religions while also
being a part of communities such as the
lgbtq+ community this practice is not
commonplace in our schools and in our
communities working at my school staff I
am the only black individual in the
newsroom and only one of two people of
color working with other school staffs
across the state I see the same home
identity even working at the state and
national level with adults I am only one
of few ethnic voices and that at times
has led me to feel like my ideas didn’t
matter but at camp I felt like I was
given this space to talk about the
issues that were important to me and I
felt was important to my community in
Philadelphia whether I camp to play
they’re like a lot of cities had a large
minority population and a large majority
of that population also was afflicted by
homelessness and as a woman I saw that a
lot of these people that were homeless
were also female so I decided to cover
how domestic violence in Philadelphia
had led to homelessness
I had the connection to the story and I
was immediately able to pick up on it
but not a lot of other journalists could
say the same similarly add a colleague
who had a Chinese background who noticed
walking the streets of Philadelphia the
paradoxical nature of the city there’s
plenty aegeon food trucks
there’s tons in fact but there was no
Koreatown or Chinatown he decided to
investigate that disconnect because
again he had a connection to the story
that not many other journalists could
say they had he was able to investigate
that disconnect because of his
perspective it was incredible how his
people of color and as people of
different backgrounds we could analyze
the city in a way that others couldn’t I
think that as people of color our
backgrounds in our upbringing is what
makes us unique and what gives us
perspectives important to the world of
journalism and this is what I learned
from that experience journalism is the
pursuit of truth but it goes beyond just
covering race issues and immigration
issues and civil rights issues in
ongoing coverage it’s beyond times to
throw out this white experience as the
sole norm and to include all races in
the community as a part of the snorum I
want you to ask yourself when reading
the news how could the story be
presented from another perspective we as
a society have to start questioning not
just the new source with the person
behind the source thank you
you
back in 2012 a police officer George
Zimmerman had killed Trayvon Martin a 17
year old african-american high school
student this story had overtaken the
entire country and journalists across
the nation had reported on it furiously
this story I as a journalist I believe
that a dedication to presenting both
sides of the story is a commonality all
journalists should share however this
wasn’t the case for the story of Trayvon
Martin
there was a stark contrast and the types
of stories being reported here I have
two articles written within the same
week by three distinctly different
reporters one article was written by two
white men the other article was written
by one black man is it immediately
noticeable the difference in reporting I
want you to take a quick look at these
headlines and determine for yourself who
wrote which article
the black man highlighted the tragedy of
the event he discussed how the death of
any child was inexcusable he even talked
about how the police department had
failed to conduct a thorough
investigation and how that led to
political unrest across the country
whereas the two white men had decided to
write a story based off ingrained
stereotypes so often in the media we are
exposed to this image of black children
as thugs he was no saint they said but
that shouldn’t be the narrative why is
the media so quick to demonize black
individuals and in 2016
17% of journalists in u.s. newsrooms
were people of color and television only
10% of show runners were people of color
and 11.7% of those in radio were people
of color there’s a lack of diversity in
our newsrooms
and that is a cause for this disparity
in journalism there are so many stories
of African Americans that are worth
telling I’ve seen and heard them myself
but the majority of news presented in
the media fits this crime Center
narrative and that needs to change
because this not only affects African
Americans this affects all minority
groups there is an obvious skew on media
towards one perspective and it is a
white perspective and often it is even
more exclusionary as it’s a middle-class
male perspective people of color are
expected to make up more than half the
entire nation’s youth by 2020 and more
than half the entire population by 2040
for people like me but our voices aren’t
present in media so what does this
diversity look like in Columbus in order
to gauge how the City of Columbus fared
and representation in media I decided to
research the race of each individual
reporter and editor at the Columbus
Dispatch the Columbus Dispatch is one of
the most prominent papers in the City of
Columbus thus its staff should consist
of people that make up the racial makeup
of the city
and it’s ideas right well among all the
writers and editors creating content for
the city I found that 97 percent were
white 97 percent it is such an
outrageous number and it’s such a stark
contrast to the actual racial makeup of
Columbus Ohio almost 40 percent of
Columbus consists of minorities of
people of color but our primary news
source consists of zero percent
minorities it’s the expectation that our
newsrooms have 95 percent people of
color of course not but our expectation
is that our newspapers are conducting
the highest quality reporting and that
cannot be possible when there’s only one
perspective presented in your newsroom
when you have a diverse staff you have
people that are comfortable and
experienced talking about certain topics
and that produces better stories I
witnessed the sentiment in action when I
attended aaja high school journalism
camp
this past summer my peers came from a
variety of backgrounds varying from
different cultural practices and
following different religions while also
being a part of communities such as the
lgbtq+ community this practice is not
commonplace in our schools and in our
communities working at my school staff I
am the only black individual in the
newsroom and only one of two people of
color working with other school staffs
across the state I see the same home
identity even working at the state and
national level with adults I am only one
of few ethnic voices and that at times
has led me to feel like my ideas didn’t
matter but at camp I felt like I was
given this space to talk about the
issues that were important to me and I
felt was important to my community in
Philadelphia whether I camp to play
they’re like a lot of cities had a large
minority population and a large majority
of that population also was afflicted by
homelessness and as a woman I saw that a
lot of these people that were homeless
were also female so I decided to cover
how domestic violence in Philadelphia
had led to homelessness
I had the connection to the story and I
was immediately able to pick up on it
but not a lot of other journalists could
say the same similarly add a colleague
who had a Chinese background who noticed
walking the streets of Philadelphia the
paradoxical nature of the city there’s
plenty aegeon food trucks
there’s tons in fact but there was no
Koreatown or Chinatown he decided to
investigate that disconnect because
again he had a connection to the story
that not many other journalists could
say they had he was able to investigate
that disconnect because of his
perspective it was incredible how his
people of color and as people of
different backgrounds we could analyze
the city in a way that others couldn’t I
think that as people of color our
backgrounds in our upbringing is what
makes us unique and what gives us
perspectives important to the world of
journalism and this is what I learned
from that experience journalism is the
pursuit of truth but it goes beyond just
covering race issues and immigration
issues and civil rights issues in
ongoing coverage it’s beyond times to
throw out this white experience as the
sole norm and to include all races in
the community as a part of the snorum I
want you to ask yourself when reading
the news how could the story be
presented from another perspective we as
a society have to start questioning not
just the new source with the person
behind the source thank you
you
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