Journalism has a diversity issue

Photo by Joan Villalon on Unsplash

The brutal killing of George Floyd at the hands of the police has sparked widespread outrage across the globe, with thousands of people from Bristol to Rio de Janeiro protesting at the treatment of black people and expressing the need for systematic change.

During the past couple of weeks we've seen brands show solidarity by uploading a single black square with the hashtag #BlackoutTuesday across their social media platforms and aligning themselves with the #blacklives movement.

While it's fantastic to see brands utilising their platforms in such a positive way, outsiders are skeptical about companies jumping on the bandwagon and posting content that's hypocritical - showcasing a black grid after themselves falling short of stamping out racism in their own companies or failing to move away using from all-white models in their campaigns or not having a diverse board, can be seen as laughable.

But you only need to look at the presenters on TV or quickly scan the faces of columnists in the UK papers to see there's a diversity problem in journalism too. Visit a newspaper newsroom and you'll be confronted by a sea of white, middle class, and often privately educated journalists.

Around 94% of journalists are white – higher than the proportion of the UK workforce as a whole, according to the National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ). Further figures are eye opening: black journalism students are less likely to be working as a journalist than white journalism students (8% compared with 26%).

The NCTJ puts the lack of diversity in the media down to several reasons - employers are mainly taking on a graduate-only workforce, therefore choosing a subset who are less diverse; students from minority groups not wanting to enter journalism and employers have selective bias.

There's various diversity schemes and funds in place such as the NCTJ Diversity Fund but more needs to be done to publicise journalism as an attractive career across all parts of society. And I say this as someone who is working class and seen more people from my school year go to prison than work in the media.

There's more that we can all do, myself included. Personally when I'm writing articles I look for a diverse range of case studies and specify this when I'm pushing out requests on ResponseSource or speaking to press officers and PRs. Having a representative bank of case studies is something I mention in my talks. Is there someone else in the organisation that you can put forward to speak to the press? 

Also, ask if you/your company are best placed to put out a particular view. Is it really time to push out an email asking if a journalist wants to speak to a white HR director at a company with an all-white board to express their views about how companies can be more representative?

Lots to consider and work on.

Have a great week,
Susie