Diversity Issues.

I keep waking up in Phoenix! This is a world-class training but damned if it isn't lengthy and comprehensive to a tee.

So today we tackled Diversity in Media, and I took away several interesting statistics, including:

Ethnic minority diversity in the newsroom is at 12.32 percent vs. a population in our country of about 30-35 percent so the reality is unsettling at best.

I do my best to fall back on my graduate certification in Gender and Ethnic Studies from NAU (ironically, I received this cert. about six months before the teaching of Ethnic Studies was 'banned' in this state's secondary schools, go figure) to discuss this with colleagues in predominantly Anglo campus environments- even the most liberal of Anglo humanists can oftentimes get caught up in the lens of white supremacy or whiteness as property- until you've walked in the shoes of an ethnic minority (which I clearly have not), it's difficult to fully grasp what it truly feels like to be on the receiving end of "being staffed on the weekend news team," for example, or until you've worked in an environment where the tables are turned and you're out of your own bubble.

Taking on the responsibility of intentionally staffing for the diversifying of the journalism classroom is essential.

Granted, I teach at a 95 percent Hispanic school so our diversity issues fall more under the umbrella of gender, class, and sexual orientation- but for the 1 percent Asian and 4 percent Black population, I still needed this reminder- homogeneity is not good for anyone in a nation like ours, least of all a newsroom.

Most stunning was the number of Native journalists- only 132 currently working. Also, only 4.6 percent of news people in our country are Black, and 50 percent of U.S. newspapers have NO minority staff members. Stunning numbers.

While race, class and gender are typically not the most comfortable of topics for Americans, I think it was a great session we all needed to hear.


"You cannot tell stories in volume without including everyone, and journalism is storytelling."


Cody Roberts
Milby High School
Houston