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\u201cOne thing that cannot be questioned is how unbelievably resilient my colleagues are who have stuck around,\u201d said Bermudez, explaining that the contract layed a foundation that is chipping away at existing disparities in newsrooms. \u201cNot only have they stuck around but pushed for more coverage of communities of color.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A major issue preventing journalists of color from working in newsrooms and online media is retention\u2014employing and keeping journalists employed\u2014according to the American Society of News Editors (ASNE), a journalism leadership organization. This phenomenon correlates with the way journalists of color feel in their work environment, according to a survey led by a Black journalist.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 1993, Sharon Bramlett-Solomon, a Black journalist who currently teaches at Arizona State University, conducted a survey on the job satisfaction of Black journalists. In it, Black journalists reported experiencing a number of issues working in newsrooms, including little opportunity for job advancement and having to work twice as hard to be considered as qualified as white colleagues. The survey found that more than half of U.S. newsrooms did not employ any journalists of color at the time.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhiteness is seen as a default setting,\u201d said Raymond Matthews, a student journalist who writes for The Bottom Line at University of California, Santa Barbara, who attended the three-day Associated Collegiate Press\/College Media Business and Advertising Managers college journalism convention in San Francisco last month. \u201cBeing a person of color, people think you have an agenda. I\u2019ve found myself having to do more work to show I\u2019m a fair and accurate reporter.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Matthews, who also wrote for The Daily Nexus, another student newspaper on campus, said he felt his voice confined as a queer Black man. \u201cI felt more pigeonholed there. They didn\u2019t have any Black writers. By virtue of the fact, they wanted me to be the voice of Black queer people, or Black people in general.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Last year, president of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ), Dorothy Tucker, and Bramlett-Solomon collaborated on an updated version of the 1993 survey on job satisfaction of Black journalists. The survey which closed January 31 of this year has not yet been published.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The issue of diversity in journalism has long persisted and was highlighted in 1968 with a historic report titled \u201cNational Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders.\u201d The report, also known as the Kerner Commission, addressed the riots that had occurred across major U.S. cities in the 1960s. It found that news coverage of circumstances for the riots had contributed to the upheaval.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201c[T]he press has too long basked in a white world, looking out of it, if at all, with white men\u2019s eyes and a white perspective. That is no longer good enough. The painful process of readjustment that is required of the American news media must begin now,\u201d stated the report.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Following this turning point, several collectives were established to support journalists from underrepresented communities and increase their numbers in the industry. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first national organization of journalists of color was the founding of the NABJ in 1975. With more than 4,000 members, the NABJ is the largest association of journalists of color; the Asian American Journalists Association followed with its formation in 1981; the Native American Journalists Association\u2014originally the Native American Press Association\u2014first met in 1983; the National Association of Hispanic Journalists was later established in 1984; and most recntly the Association of LGBTQ Journalists\u2014previously the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association\u2014was formalized in 1991.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cEverything is funneled or looked at through a white-dominant narrative,\u201d said Bermudez, describing the pressure the industry puts on Latinx journalists to assimilate. \u201cWe\u2019re always victims or villains, eternally suffering or eternally killing.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The most recent survey on newsroom diversity was released by ASNE in 2019. The data was collected from 429 national news organizations, both print and online-only, and revealed that while journalists of color make up 30.8 percent of salaried workers, only 18.8 percent are managers.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The survey pointed out that news organizations with gender and racially diverse staff in leadership positions tend to have more gender and racially diverse staff.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bermudez wrote an article in January regarding the controversy with the book, American Dirt. In it she explained how an overrepresentation of white people in the publishing industry leaves Latinx writers out. The effect, she said, is the publishing of inauthentic stories by white people who write about the experiences of people of color.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe focus should be the amount of white people who control newsrooms,\u201d said Bermudez, explaining that without diverse leadership in news organizations, the stories journalists of colors want to write will continue to be compromised. \u201cYou shouldn\u2019t have to dull your culture or your perspective.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
ASNE has pledged to help achieve the goal of having the number of journalists of color working in news organizations reflect the number of populations of color in the nation by 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Journalists who belong to marginalized groups often seek representation for their communities and dignity for their work. However the road to fulfilling that mission is often a difficult one. \u201cEverything I do goes back to growing up in El Salvador and being part of that community,\u201d said Esmeralda Bermudez, a Salvadoran-born journalist who\u2019s been writing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":43037,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":false,"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"coauthors":[18543],"class_list":["post-43034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","entry"],"yoast_head":"\n