Emma Carew Grovum
This interview is absolutely a must-read. Baratunde Thurston offers up some great advice on diversifying the news and newsrooms.
5 ways young journalists can stay motivated, thrive in the newsroom | Poynter.
Just one of the great pieces of advice AAJA’s Tom Huang gives to young journalists in his open letter to us on Poynter.
It’s a great read and great advice to keep in mind.
A little more than a year ago, we started diversify.journalismwith.me as a way to encourage journalism conference and workshop organizers to diversify their panels.
We were inspired when Retha Hill asked, Why Are New Media Conferences Lacking In Minorities? in a blog on PBS Media Shift.
Since then, we’ve worked to curate more than 130 journalists from UNITY orgs, journalists from across disciplines who rock, and belong on panels and in “save journalism” conversations.
We’re always continuing to add to the list. Nominate yourself and others here.
So, if you’re planning a convention, if you’re up-voting in the ONA Session Selector (which closes soon!), if you’re pitching panels for UNITY, NABJ, Excellence in Journalism or a local convention, keep diversity in mind.
Change the conversation and make it better.
Leaders of AAJA moved quickly to address questions from membership after the recent decision of NABJ leadership to leave the UNITY journalists alliance.
Some tweets from today’s conference call:
My big takeaway from Thursday’s mid-winter mixer for ThreeSixty Journalism? Get inspired. If you’re not excited about the future of journalism because of the work that YOU are doing, anyone could at least get excited about the work these amazing students are doing.
Pictured: good friend, former Minnesota Daily colleague, and ThreeSixty alum Ibrahim Hirsi, telling the story (via video) of how a high school journalism program planted a seed, that led him to found his own high school newspaper, work for his college paper, and win high profile internships.
I continue to attend ThreeSixty events and volunteer with the program every chance I get — not only because it gave me my start and created opportunities I never dreamed of — because this program is changing the future of journalism. Everyday.
Here’s my shameless pitch: Please consider supporting a program like ThreeSixty in your own community. My #jcarn entry for this month was based around arming teens and students with great journalism skills, and that’s because I see it working with ThreeSixty.
Do all the alumni become journalists? No. But many of them take the communication skills, the inquisitive thinking, and the great belief in communities and do great things.
Four of my 2002 classmates were at the mixer last week (one via video). Nine years later, two of us are in traditional journalism, one writes at the Minnesota Legislature, one works for a Minnesota Senator’s office, and one works with a charter school.
So please. Consider volunteering with students in journalism. What’s the worst that could happen?
Probably no surprise, that I find this report appalling — especially in light of what we do as journalists, fighting every day for transparency and better data.
In discussing this with a friend, we noted that numbers however, should not be the only measure of a news organization’s commitment to diversity.
That we must represent and reflect the communities which we cover IS and remains a worthy goal. But there is more to it than that.
More must be done to increase diversity in the media, and the parallel fair and accurate coverage of diverse communities, than make token hires of staff members of color.
What’s also disappointing is that news organization leaders and management continue to need convincing that a commitment to diversity is necessary and of value to them.
