For years, newsrooms across America have had a problem
with a lack of diversity and inclusion. People
of color are underrepresented among news
organizations, which do not reflect the makeup
of the general population and have made little
progress in the past decade.
Although non-whites make up about 40% of the US population,
journalists of color comprise only 16.55% of newsrooms’ staff in 2017,
according to the American Society of Newspaper
Editors (ASNE) Newsroom Employment Diversity
Survey.
Larger newsrooms and digital news organizations are a
little better - 23.4% and 24.3%, respectively
- but not much. People of color are only 13.4%
of newsroom leaders.
This comes at a time when society
needs and demands more
inclusive news. It’s been 190 years since the
creation of the black press, and it’s as
relevant as ever.
In the absence of an inclusive environment, the quality of
journalism suffers. Certain stories are simply
not reported, or are told without the nuance
or perspective the circumstances require. The
black press has filled that void for
generations. And with the advent of digital
platforms, a baton has been passed to black
millennial writers to continue presenting
narratives, with underrepresented points of
views, that would otherwise go missing - and
do not necessarily reflect the white men who
dominate the industry.
Far beyond using social media for entertainment, shopping
or communication, African-American millennials
have elevated Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and
other platforms to raise public consciousness
about the issues impacting black people. The
hashtags #BlackLivesMatter and #OscarsSoWhite
are prime examples of this phenomenon.
According to Nielsen, 55% of black consumers between 18
and 34 spend at least an hour on social media
each day, 6% higher than all millennials. In
addition, 29% of black millennials spend three
or more hours daily on social media sites, 9%
higher than that of all millennials.
While black millennials fall below their counterparts in
the percentage of leisure time spent on social
media, they exceed the general millennial
population in their overall presence on
Twitter, Tumblr, Google+ and Whatsapp. That
online presence has translated into the
creation of a network of black news outlets
specifically creating content that will meet
readers and viewers where they are.
Additionally, when the mainstream
media covers a particular issue, the black
press may cover it with a completely different
angle – if not a different issue altogether.
For example, the black press rejected the mainstream media narrative
that white “working class” support for Trump
was primarily economic in nature, reporting
instead on the presidential candidate’s appeal
to white solidarity, raw racism and the
scapegoating of minority groups.
After all, white economic angst by
itself does
not reconcile the fact that whites always have
fared better than their African- and
Latino-Americans. And while the mainstream
news organizations have
framed the NFL protests through the
prism of patriotism and support for the
military, the black press has
focused on the crisis of police
brutality and racial violence that underlie
the athletes’ decision to take a knee during
the national anthem.
Fifty years ago, when unrest rocked
cities across the nation as a result of police
brutality and systemic racism, the Kerner
Commission - an 11-member commission
appointed by President Lyndon B. Johnson that
highlighted racism for its role in a surge in
urban riots - took the news media to task.
“We have found a significant imbalance
between what actually happened in our cities
and what the newspaper, radio and television
coverage of the riots told us happened,” the
Kerner report
said.
“Our second and fundamental criticism
is that the news media have failed to
analyze and report adequately on racial
problems in the United States and, as a
related matter, to meet the Negro’s
legitimate expectations in journalism. By
and large, news organizations have failed to
communicate to both their black and white
audiences a sense of the problems America
faces and the sources of potential
solutions.”
The Commission made a number of recommendations, including
that news organizations employ black people
beyond mere tokenism and in positions of real
responsibility, and that they publish
newspapers and produce programs that
acknowledge black people, who they are and
what they do.
Although newsrooms have made some progress, it’s not where
it should or needs to be. But by empowering
themselves and their followers - without
gatekeepers and intermediaries in the
traditional media sense - young, black
journalists have reached a broad audience.
They can educate and mobilize others to act on
a given issue, and connect with local,
national and global social justice movements.
A videographer or documentarian can broadcast a crime in
progress - such as a police beating of an
unarmed motorist - live and in real time,
before an audience of thousands if not
millions. In that regard, technology is the
great equalizer, a check on the abuse of
official power and a call to reform harmful
patterns and discriminatory practices.
From its inception, the black press has been a change
agent by shining a light on the plight of
blacks and giving them the power to write and
report on their own narratives. In New York in
1827, Rev. Samuel Cornish and John B. Russwurm
began publication of Freedom’s Journal, the first black-owned newspaper in America. Excluded
from white venues and often insulted in their
absence, black voices found the need to tell
their own stories.
“We wish to plead our own cause. Too
long have others spoken for us. Too long has
the public been deceived by representations,
in things which concern us dearly,” wrote the
editors in their first
edition.
Throughout the Civil
War, black newspapers were centers for
political debate on the war and emancipation,
and advocacy for black soldiers. During Jim
Crow and the reign of Klan terror, the black
press fought against segregation, demanded
equal rights for African Americans and helped
elect politicians to office.
The
Chicago Defender, which had demanded federal
intervention from President Woodrow Wilson to
stop lynchings, played a role in the Great
Migration by urging a mass exodus of black
people from the South.
In the 1890s, journalist Ida
B. Wells led a campaign against lynching
at considerable personal risk. Born a slave,
she wrote about the injustices of racial
segregation in the South. A mob descended upon
her Memphis news office, destroyed her
equipment and threatened her with death.
Over the years, many black publications disappeared.
Others learned to navigate the new landscape,
and a plethora of new black media emerged with
a strictly online presence, impacting the
manner that black people digest and make sense
of the news.
The days of “reading the paper” are
long gone for many, but what remains the same
is that the black press doesn’t look like the
theoretical textbook case of objective
journalism - and it was never meant to be -
whatever that means to you.
When narratives are told from the perspective of a black
lens, perhaps there are no two sides to a
story. Perhaps there is only one side, or
numerous sides with various textures and
shades. What is certain is that there is a
sense of responsibility to the community,
advocating for that community and telling
their stories from their perspective.
A digital environment arms African-American millennial
writers with tools that enable them to carve
out their own territory in their unique and
innovative way - exercising free speech and
contributing to a healthy democracy, and
staying true to the proud history of the black
press.
This commentary is
also posted on CNN
