Welcome to Real talk about the status of d i in journalism. Please welcome to the stage. Oh and a learning director. Kelsey proud
Good morning. Do you remember the first time you heard the term d E. I have it the answer really differs depending on who you are. Was it an all hands meeting at work? Are citizens regularly protesting in the streets? How soon after that, were you required to take a dei training course
to literally check a box? Did your company hire a chief diversity officer? Were they given a team a usable budget are they still in their role? Do they have power? Did your company write a statement on diversity and release it to the public?
What has happened to all of these initiatives now? What opportunities are we missing as an industry? What decisions need to be made? There is not only a human case for inclusion, but a clear and urgent business case. dei is more than a corporate buzzword. We will meet this moment. Question mark. What happens and who was hurt when the industry falls short or fails in this way? What gets cut first, when budgets get tight. We have the good fortune of having sort of a super session today focused on these questions and more. And, of course, you'll have questions. So please remind all of you that you can submit your live questions for the panel on the session description on the own a 23 website and app. First, we welcome our panel for robust discussion and reflections on their own experiences. Then at 1230 we will welcome to call Hannah Jones to the stage for a fireside conversation. So stay in the room, stay in the stream and it's going to be an essential hour and a half. Now I'd love to introduce our amazing panel of experts in this area. Kathleen McIlroy of the University of Texas at Austin Nora Ayala, Polly
of your L media.
Martin G Reynolds of the Robert C Maynard Institute for journalism education and our moderator today is VS Sharma. of Teen Vogue. Thank you all.
Right, good morning. Thank you so much, Kelsey. And thank you all for joining us. Kelsey, kind of already did this with her very, very essential opening questions, but this is you know, how I want to start is painting a more vivid picture of how we were all feeling in 2020. So it's May 2020. We're two months in the into the pandemic. Video of the murder of George George Floyd is spreading online and protests are starting. Then they're spreading first throughout the country than throughout the world. Everyone is talking about racial justice and the lack of it. Every industry is taking stock of their own shortcomings, dei positions are created at multiple companies. Newsrooms are looking at their own mass heads for the first time in some cases ever and this lens and the people like yourselves who have been banging this drum all along are finally being heard. Promises are made to do better percentages, quotas, pledges. Fast forward to here today, August 2023, and Philadelphia. What is one word that you would use to describe the current status of d i in journalism Martin, I'm gonna start with you
retrenchment.
demoralizing
I mispronounce this word. It was on my GRE. Even though it's been around a long time, in Cholet and CO it that it's still at a beginning and it hasn't really been fully formed. Yes, yes.
All great options for this question. Now, the three of you are not new to this. In fact, you've been working for many, many years toward establishing racial equity and journalists supposedly, supposedly, how did you feel in 2020 when all of these promises were being made, and then how are you feeling? Now let's elaborate on your own choices.
In 2020 I mean, obviously, what emerged out of such a tragic moment, was also incredibly inspirational. People talked about it being a racial reckoning. I would say for some, perhaps it was an awakening. And there seemed to be a common view, in large part because of this mix of a pandemic and folks being sort of shut in, that there was this sort of collective opportunity to see this horror that many of us have known had existed for so long. And so it felt good that others were seeing what we have been seeing and navigating. That was powerful, that was profound, that was deeply touching. And it was also incredibly frustrating at the same time, because it's in many ways. I mean, I'd look at it just taking it personally. It's like well, how come you haven't known this the entire time?
Plus one to two what more insane I I had been working in this space since about for most of all of my career, and then was formally given the title in 2018. And so when 2020 rolled around, and and, you know, it was hard, you know, it was this conflicting emotion of like this really tragic event that should not have happened is now catapulting diversity, equity and inclusion into the spotlight. So it was very, you know, conflicting emotions about how, you know, this work that a lot of us have been doing for a long time, is suddenly everyone was paying attention to so there was a lot of good things to come out of that. So it was like, you know that that morning, at the same time trying to put my head on and say, Alright, this is our moment, to really make sure this work is not taken for granted anymore. So it was exhilarating to be in the spotlight. We, you know, in my role, my it's my former role. We we seize the moment, and we we had really tough conversations in our newsroom. We were really self reflective for the first time which was a good thing to come out of it. And people were part of the conversation. I left that role and joined URL media where I'm continuing to advance that work. So to be in this moment where we've seen this retrenchment. Huge retrenchment. It is demoralizing at the same time. I want to find the silver lining of like when we come back to to to a moment where people realize that this is about building workplaces that are thriving where everyone feels like they have they belong and that they have a story to tell. So there is hope and I'll turn it over to Kathleen because I'm sure she has a lot.
No to say this is I'm gaining as much from this as anyone else but you know a couple of things. I remember after George Floyd and some other murders that someone said, Ooh, on what used to be known as Twitter. Just when you thought you know COVID was ahead in the count. You know, racism comes in and it's taken the lead, and someone tweeted back now you got a wrong COVID It was the visiting team. Racism is the home team. And I thought that was really insightful. But in terms of journalism, I actually did a case study for this a sinner. I work for the Center for Ethical Leadership in media. And what's interesting is that as journalists got beaten up by cops, they said, Wait a second, there's something wrong here. And in the course of one week, in June 2020 There were newsrooms upheavals here in Philadelphia, at the New York Times, at all these places like journalists are saying, especially journalists of color are like, wait a second, we're being affected by all of this, and we're not being supported. And we have a voice in our newsroom that goes beyond we're just gonna, quote unquote, report the news. And let's see what happens. So I was really fascinated by how newsrooms, sort of, in a way I don't want to call it a mutiny, but sort of said, Wait a second, we need more voice of what's going on here.
Now, what followed was a slew of appointments and hires and I myself was part of this new leadership wave about a year later on May 2021. I was announced as the new editor in chief of Teen Vogue, there are so many other women of color, taking leadership positions of newsrooms at that time as well. These trend pieces were written in The New York Times and variety even Hollywood Reporter. But one thing that we have been talking about is okay, it's one thing to hire somebody to these positions. How do you actually set them up for success? And I know that all of you have done a lot of work in this space. But Martin, I want to start with you because I know you have intimate knowledge of what that means.
Well, at the Manhattan Institute, we are the oldest national nonprofit dedicated to helping America's newsrooms reflect the diversity of the nation and when 2020 happened, and the calls for dismantling systemic racism in news emerged and building anti racist newsrooms, which was also powerful, because in many ways, we were not using that language. And as we were talking about naming what it truly is, and using the language and addressing what actually needs to be unwound, is incredibly powerful. And at that time, we as an organization, were reflecting on what what ought the aspiration be, I mean, we're journalists about journalism for journalism. And so we wanted to think about what should we be pointing to and then thinking about the programming that we needed to develop to be in service of that. And in talking with folks in philanthropy and with folks to community organizers and activists, this notion, this elegant notion of belonging emerged and not that we came up with that it's been in other sectors for quite some time, but it certainly hadn't been in journalism to the way that it is now. And in thinking about what kind of programming could happen to create journalistic institutions of belonging. We thought about we do faultlines training which focuses on race and class and gender and generation geography and how you align across those social fault lines, shapes perception, but the reality is a che a short training in an organization is not going to be transformative enough. And so we wanted to come up with something that was a much deeper engagement, because the reality is and we ask people all the time and now we do is, well why does diversity matter to you? Because the reality is for folks often in this room who come to these kinds of sessions, there's a relationship to it. For many of our friends and colleagues in these places and in positions of power. There isn't necessarily and if you can't, and as journalists, we so often want to focus on the organization, the coverage, the work the product, but in fact we are all showing up with deeply conditioned ways of thinking. And until we actually get personal with what, why what needs to change within me in order to make this place hospitable and welcoming for all. Then we are just dancing around the edges. And so we are trying to dig in deep and get to that work and it takes time. It is hard. I would argue it is some of the hardest work you can do.
I left legacy media after 18 years in the summer of 2021. And my last role was leading diversity, equity and inclusion programs within a large newsroom, and that was really rewarding. Work. I left to join my childhood friend Mitra at URL media because she was creating something different and a different way of doing business. And we joined together to really disrupt how hiring is done. And to your point, Martin, getting at disrupting how we hire and so it's been really rewarding work to do it at URL, where we are in a different position of power where we can actually talk to engage with clients in a way and our clients are you know, employers who say to us, we want diverse candidates, we're not attracting enough diverse candidates to this position. How can you help? And one of the things that we're able to do is really challenge clients if they want to be challenged. And what does that mean to you? How are you setting up candidates of color for success? Because we are about the where Can't we approach candidates from place of affirmation, and we want to make sure that we're placing them in a workplace that's going to uplift, respect and love all of their experience, and make sure that they're creating a system where this person can succeed and thrive. So we're not just pleasing people for the sake of diversity. And that's a really different way of working. And with some clients, it works and with the clients that we figure out like yeah, this is a check the box exercise for you we're pretty open and transparent about that and we are likely not to work with them again, if they are not really genuine about their desire to create an ecosystem within their earn an ethos in their workplace where people of color can succeed and thrive.
So what are you looking for when you want to say this organization is doing more than just checking the box?
We go through a series of intake conversations with our clients about the ethos of their organization, and, and it's a partnership so we're meeting with them as we're trying to lay out a list of candidates. We are meeting with them very frequently asking a lot of probing questions I put my journalism hat on, because a lot of this is about really interrogating. So when someone says, you know, we really want someone who's going to push the envelope. I'm like, Okay, let's unpack that. What do you really mean by that? Because pushing the envelope for me, means really holding truth to power and is that what it looks like in your organization? You'd be surprised some people were like, oh, yeah, no, that's not what I meant. What I meant was, yeah, I'm like, Are they really got to be able to challenge the CEO? Are they really like, that's how I
think about it.
And so it's really eye opening for the client and for us, and through a series of conversations we get there. You know, there's also actions like we had, we had one client which we talked about, and that will remain nameless, where we had presented a slate of candidates of color. This woman of color got through to the very end and at the end of the process, this client came to us and said, Well, you know, we want to offer her a job, not the top job, but we lessening the offer and giving her a kind of stepladder to the next role and we push back on that we said that is that is not okay. That is and we parted ways. With this client. And we're okay to step away from a relationship like that because it doesn't serve our mission. It doesn't serve us how we It doesn't serve our candidates and it doesn't serve our goal to really truly diversify newsrooms.
I think that's amazing that you walk away. You spoke about your legacy media career. Mitra also spent however many years at CNN before she started this organization. So the two of you and others that you work with, were able to really build agency and experience through these legacy media companies. And I just want to hear you talk a little bit about how that allows you to now say no, because I know probably earlier in your career, you were not comfortable saying that.
Very true. We came up at a very different time. And it you know, it's that ability to say no, that drew me to I've never worked at a startup. It was a chance I took it was exhilarating. It is exhilarating to be in that position. have not always been in that position. It's hard though it is hard work because we leave money on the table. And you know, we are a for profit company which sometimes companies will come to us and say you're a bipoc owned people of color LED organization, you must be a nonprofit. So there is there's a lot of work we're doing to educate people. We are unapologetically capitalist and for profit, and we need to make money to support our network partners to and help them create an ecosystem within the journalism space that helps black and brown owned media thrive. So so we are you know, at least in the recruitment division, we're always walking that fine line. But what I love about working with Mitra and all of the URL crew is that we know where our North Star is and our North Star is uplifting, respecting and loving the experiences of our candidates and also through the network of our network partners. So we always go back to that and that gives us the ability to say no even if it does hurt our bottom line,
right, right. Okay, Kathleen. For those of you who may not know, you were meant to be at Texas a&m right now. Somehow you are still at UT Austin. If you don't know the story, what I'll say is Google her. What can you offer in that with that perspective?
You know? I now I've studied newsroom practices for a very, very long time. And I never expected that I would be my own case study. So it's very weird. When someone says, Oh, I saw you interviewed on something No, no, I never talked to those people. I don't know what you're talking about. But there are a lot of stories. So now I'm on the other side of seen media and I got extraordinarily positive reporting and positive commentary, which I'll never forget. But it's also it's a little bit like waking net to find if you've ever seen that movie where I won't give you the plot point but you will know that part of if you've seen it you know what I'm talking about. To hear people say wonderful things about unicycle. Yeah, I don't know me. I just had a hissy fit on the tennis court. That's not Kathleen. But I will say in terms of newsrooms in 1955, I might get the year wrong. Warren breed did a study of journalists of newspapers. And he really broke down how culture rules newsrooms. Now this had nothing to do with diversity. It had only to do with newspapers, because that's all he studied. But if you look at it 1955 Everything you said pretty much holds true about newsrooms certain people always end up on a one. Certain people never end up on a one. Certain people get to break the rules, certain people don't. So one of the things about the Center for Ethical Leadership and media is we're saying that dei is part of the same problem of sexual harassment, part of toxic newsrooms, part of all this type of stuff that this is a part of newsrooms, who could be better managed. I'm not saying they're not great managers. There are so many great managers out there but is there a way that we can articulate what leadership could look like in a newsroom and I say this as a person who got again, very positive coverage, but I can't lose sight of the fact that I have students who come to me crying and 19 complaining about the same things that happened to me when I was a 19 year old intern. That That hasn't changed. That is like, what is wrong with that? So and I also wonder, Why me? I mean, I on my badge, I still have an Evan button. We cannot forget Aven. And we cannot forget the people we don't even know what their names are. And that's the tough part. But I think if newsrooms can think about beyond people of privilege and connections like me, how do we uncover those stories and have a more complete newsroom by embracing the unseen which is hard? That is very hard, but how do we get people to tell us their stories? And I think improving the way newsrooms are run so young people and people of color, and people who are from non elite schools, and people who went to community colleges can feel as if they can have a place at the table to help us find those stories. So I know that was a long answer, and I apologize.
No, I appreciate you calling that out. Because early in my career, there were times when I was the only non white person in the room, the only woman, the only woman of color, but also the only person who did not go to an Ivy League school because that is very much also an issue. Now in your personal case, your case is now settled. But there is an element of your situation because of a new law in Texas that is supposed to go into effect in January banning di programs but it's basically already in effect.
Yeah, it's really complicated. And I am not a legal expert. So if what I'm saying is wrong, feel free to correct me I will not take offense. But office d i offices are not allowed in public universities, supposedly research and educational work is still protected, and student organizations should still be protected. But in many places, people who were associate Dean's of dei will have to figure out what that means. And that became, you know, it seems as if all the things related to dei are now sort of hey, what's going on and it's all part of that basket. So M and D is often a shortcut just to say a person of color or a person with an identity marker. So that's how it all sort of gets woven together.
So there there is this real backlash. Against di because I think, again, after 2020 of the racial justice protests, we dared to start naming the systems right, systemic racism is an issue. white patriarchy is an issue. White supremacy affects every industry. Martin, this is something we've talked a lot about. So tell me your perspective. Again, having worked in this space for so long at seen both the cultural backlash, rhetorical backlash, but then it's manifesting in laws in Texas and Florida,
and manifesting in a class action lawsuit that five current and former Gwinnett employees just filed against the company citing discriminate against discrimination against non people of color. And we are seeing these responses tax on corporate dei programs. And I have, like I said in our in our prep call that I have sort of this burning rage around this issue, that we have this one moment where we push and propel things forward. And then the minute that that happens, and then this SCOTUS decision occurs, and then these chilling effects that emerge as a result of that coupled with the financial issues and some concerns on the part of newsrooms. So we've seen a real slowing in the desire on the part of news organizations to have more training to keep building on the work that they had done. We convened a group of newly minted dei editors who had been hired during that period. of time. And it was all women of color, mostly black women. Interesting that the folks who are often called on to clean up the messes is Kathleen was saying Are women of color and particularly black women. And and so then all of a sudden, what happens to those positions where the support for them? The other part is there's also been a shift and a shift in gays in philanthropy. Philanthropy has was responded incredibly powerfully to 2020. But then as those fires burn in other parts of the horizon, that gaze shifts and what I'm looking to this focus on, obviously, local news, but we've also had program officers ask the question, well, what do and as the shift to threats to democracy has emerged? And they asked us well, what does diversity have to do with a threat to democracy? And I'm just looking at them like how am I supposed to answer that question? And
it's very, it's very, if I have to ask the question then.
So that's and that's not everyone, but there are there are program officers that are asking that and then there's the part what we're hearing is that there's sort of conversations around. They're having conversations with attorneys and making sure that language is appropriate. And I'm like, that's not the posture. Folks with billions of dollars of corpuses should be taking against this institutional and structural attack. That we are seeing. You need to lead smaller nonprofits like the Maynard Institute and many others affinity groups who are doing this and been pushing for this for so long. We're the ones who could be attacked and could be wiped out as a result of these lawsuits. You all have the power the influence the capacity and legal teams to affect this change, and you have an obligation to do so and speak to it. And that's a little uncomfortable for executive director of a nonprofit to say, but I'm gonna say it.
I was, um, yes, yes. A round of applause for that. Absolutely. I was glad that you mentioned the lawsuit because they didn't know about this at first, and I don't know if it is widely known, but they are actually suing for reverse alleging reverse discrimination. Correct. Because they're not people of color, right? Fascinating.
It's enough to make you go quiet in front of many people.
You know, I do want to say one of the reasons why I chose the word I said in the beginning, though I can't pronounce it is because the Hutchins commission in the 40s slightly addressed race in newsrooms. There's a line in there about, you know, comics and quote unquote, colored people, okay. And then, of course, we ended up with the Kerner, commission and 68 After all the riots and the only chapter people talk about us a chapter on journalism by the way, you know, sorry about that. My watch goes off at noon every day. But there are all these other chapters, but, you know, we journalists only talk about the one on newsrooms and you know, part of it is white reporters were being beaten up during the riots. Okay, let's hire some black folk, and some brown folk. And now we're talking about this and we're still going to be there. But people are going to try to come up with like, if Diaz being attacked, is because in some little tiny bit way, and it's just tiny, it's working. So that's why I am less worried about the expression and just knowing that we will figure something out, you know, just because the sheer numbers of us but again, how can you empower there's a great line and Juneteenth and then I will shut up the book Juneteenth when these black people go into the office of a senator and they say we are among the counted but not heard. So how can we make people not only counted but heard
now, have you seen a similar backtracking of some of these promises or funds or pledges for hiring in your work?
Absolutely, we we did really well, in 2021 22 This year we've seen a lot less interest in how we do business and how we approach hiring. It has a lot to do with this retrenchment of commitments to diversity, equity and inclusion. And because we also strongly believe in holding people to account for, you know, using or trying to use diversity as a buzzword. I think you know, that folks are a little bit like, well, we don't need that anymore. We've got it solved. And I want to bring up something you you both talked about is the power right. We did see a lot of appointments of women of color and black women to different positions with a newsrooms, but were they given the power to make changes did they have the support to to really do the work that they were hired to do? And, you know, I would venture to say, and just from my, you know, conversations off the record with a lot of these women. No, and that's really, you know, gets at the heart of the problem like you can appoint people into leadership roles, but are you giving them the power to do the job you you said they, they were employed to do and that's still not changing and that hasn't shifted. And if you have one woman of color at the top, how much power do they have to lift as they climb? Right and then are they the person that's just bringing, you know, oh, you're just bringing this person because they look like you or sound like you? Well, you know, people have before us have been doing that and no one said anything.
No, what you're saying I mean, if you do research, I know you all know the expression double bind. So if you're a woman, by the way, the term bossy only applies to women. No man has ever called bossy. Okay? But to her point, if you have the responsibility and none of the authority, hmm, we've all been in that position. Right. So that's why I look at newsrooms as a whole as a workplace. And anyone who's won, you know, just because you win awards or just because you brought down something doesn't mean that maybe you're the best manager. And newsrooms haven't always operated that way. So all the things you're talking about.
Now, Martin, you mentioned the burning rage. We've also called it the quiet rage, the burden on people of color in their newsrooms, and in the industry as a whole to bring up these conversations and constantly have them and constantly be asked to prove yourself and then be put in these positions but not given the resources or the power. It is absolutely exhausting. Talk to me a little bit about that mental toll and also what is it that keeps you going and the work that you're doing?
Well, I'd say that what keeps me going in the work is our programs like manner 200 that we offer at the institute where we're training the next generation of journalism entrepreneurs, mid level managers and editors. executive leaders and storytellers and at last year's graduation, and at USC, we asked the fellows upon graduation to give describe one word to explain their experience during the fellowship. And they're, they're organically sorted to respond as to how they were feeling when they arrived. And these are four tracks of learning and they get a bunch of training, they get support, they get a mentor. There's work in between to in person weeks of training, but what they said, we're talking about being unseen, unheard undervalued. considering leaving journalism. And these are incredibly smart, thoughtful, bright minds of different generations, and of different ethnicities and races and classes and genders, and who need to be in the profession. And then to hear them say after being together learning from a diverse faculty, what they got in and most importantly, building community and for them to be saying the inverse of that, that they are now seen. They feel valued. They feel heard, they feel supported. That's the work that inspires me and inspires the maner team. My co Executive Director Evelyn Sue is here who is the architect of that and our director, Odette Keeley is also here, and they just do amazing work supporting these folks. But the reality is these folks come in feeling this sense of imposter syndrome. They're going into places where it is hostile, but it's also part of the reason that we have a track for entrepreneurs, because when we designed Manna 200 We understood that we couldn't continue to funnel people into many of these toxic newsrooms, and we needed to support folks who are going to remake media and so that's incredibly inspiring and inspiring as well.
For me, personally, I have found great set like I've been centered by the candidates that we work with. I have the great gift of hearing directly from them, that we you know, I've changed the course of their career or how they think about the interview process. We do a lot of coaching of our candidates along the way and that's all free. And so, you know, even if they don't get the job at the end, I have heard just so many stories about how Wow, no one's ever said that to me. No one's ever been, as sometimes, you know, I'm very direct in a good like loving way. But, you know, hearing that I am able to help someone reframe how they're viewed, how to talk about their experience, how to package their experiences and life skills, and present those in a way that really resonate is very powerful. So that's what keeps me going. And then the other like simmering rage that we talked about is that a lot of our folks are leaving the industry in droves, or they're being laid off. I mean, all the layoffs we've seen I mean, we saw this in 2008 We're seeing it now, that that also drives me because we need to be stay in this business. And so how do we create an ecosystem that pays people a living wage, that they can still do this work? feel valued and respected? For the perspective they bring to the newsroom is still at the core of of what brings me and inspires me to continue to do the work that we do. Because it is important that we stay in this field. Our stories are still haven't been told like it's it's an unfinished story. And, you know, also you I think you both brought up this idea of like journalists just come from these like ivory towers and purchase. I've seen that and you know, there is a way of talking about and reporting about our communities and then there's a way to do it with authenticity that I think you know, only we can do and only we can really bring those stories to light and so I want to see us just continue this work because of that we need to be in the seeds. Well, you know,
my thing is the 19 year old wants to work for the New York Times and hasn't read a story yet. Or you know this this idea this notion I I want that person in that beginning reporting class. I want to see them five years from now. I want to see them 10 years from now, when they're leaders, and our curriculum is most right now is mostly designed designed for students, because we've done the work that our center used to be called press forward. And there was work that we did with McKinsey that showed that people of color and women enter the media workplace about 50%. But as the leadership pipeline goes, it shrinks to maybe 2% or 3%. I'm making up it's very, very small. So my thing is, I want that student to if you want to work in a newsroom, then I want you to have all the chances of doing that. And I want you to feel like a couple of years into it. That this is something I want to do and I am supported. I have a living wage. i There is an online harassment policy there are all these things that go into it. So that's why this center and this you know, curriculum more important for me because the students today who are majoring in journalism are fighting culture. They're fighting their parents. They're fighting a lot of things for a profession that needs to give them as much love back somehow. So that's why I I still feel like there's a future.
So in that vein, yes. In that vein, what is your advice to young journalists who want to advocate for inclusivity and equity in their newsrooms, but they don't yet have those leadership roles?
So I think and maybe because of certain states ran or certain words, I'm gonna go to your word belonging or how can I talk to my leadership in a way that my leadership hears me? Sometimes you don't even want a solution? You just want to be heard. Right. So what are the mechanisms you can put into your newsroom? How can you talk to your immediate boss or what's out there? What's the quote unquote, a lot of things that are listed as training aren't really training. It says you need to get up close and personal with the people who are running your life. So I think it's helping people and that's what we're trying to do with our curriculum, how you navigate so to me, again, di is one part of what we need to make newsrooms functional. Because if you have a better newsroom to me, you have better content.
Plus one to that and I would say finding community like find your tribe. Find people that yes are going to hear you when you just need to rant and complain because everything is awful. But people that are also going to help you lift yourself from that and figure out solutions and ways forward because we all need that. You know, to your point, we need to figure out like how do we talk to that boss, so surround yourself by people that are going to help arm you with the tools to get through those tough moments because the work is hard. Sometimes you're not paid what you should be. And so we need to do a better job of uplifting each other and being there for each other. And really creating community I would say is my best advice to young folks and reach out to us.
Yeah, I would agree with all of that. And I guess what I would add to it is when we have our fellows go through maner 200 They are one of our senior most trainers Professor Jean Marie Brown, does the Gallop strengths program so that they can understand where their strengths lie. Rather than focusing on the weakness. Where is your superpower and how can you double and triple down on that and it gives them a better perspective on number one their own skills and capacities and abilities, but also gives them a chance to think about what what might be happening with other folks also thinking across social fault lines of race and class and gender because how we align across these fault lines shapes our perception, and it shapes our biases. And it can explain why two people look at the same thing and come away with very different perceptions. And so if you can arm yourself with some perspective and understanding of that, it's a very powerful way in which to step into a room that can be very difficult and one of the things that we're seeing happening is generation is a huge fault line tension point in news organizations, as we have for adult organization for adult generations, and often in newsrooms, you know Boomers, Gen X's, which are clearly the best generation and then we Yeah, yep. And then we have millennials, which represent the largest group and then we have Gen Z. And so and I think Gen Z and millennials have a real different desire and how to be managed and it goes from sort of this notion of boss to coach this notion of my career to my life and so I think that actually is really good for journalism, because those of us who came up before it was like, Get there early and stay late. And they're like, Oh, I'm not staying late. I need to go and why am I not promoted and I should be making more money. So and I think there's some some good, there's some good lessons in that but also, the younger folks need to have a little grace as well and understand that they have different generations that were shaped in different ways and have their own things to bring in that they can learn from,
but I will say the burden. Oh, and I know it's gonna be time for q&a. I think the burden often though, does fall on the youngest generation in the newsroom. That there is this sort of acquiescing acquiescing? And it's also I think, the one thing I would say to everybody in this room is that you are not alone. People will try to gaslight you. People will isolate you. And you've got to, it's hard because we all have impostor. I'm 64 years old, and I have impostor syndrome. So I think that's the thing to realize is that there are things that are happening to you that have nothing to do with you. Yes, and I know that's a very difficult thing to unpack. But that's one thing I would say to young people.
Yeah. Now, I'll just add quickly, that to your point about the generational difference, says, you know, we're all always learning and on my team, Sonali Kohli teaches me things every single day and I am grateful to be on the receiving end of that mentorship from her. She's not here but shout out to her because she is just amazing. And I think that's a lesson for us as we get older, that we are always learning and to really embrace that generational difference and it's something that I bring to my work when I talk to clients and trying to help them navigate those shifts is really, really important.
All right, I think we have some audience questions to get to.
Sure. Actually, we don't have any right now, but I will allow them if you have questions in the room, we have questions on the stream. Please submit those now. Through the link that's in the session description. But I do have a question for you all, which is when you're thinking about this upcoming presidential election, and all the things that we've talked about, what do you think about how newsrooms and news organizations are viewing the lens of the you know, the whole fabric of the United States? And how they're allocating their resources? Do you think that they're preparing in the right ways? What advice would you give them? What what sort of, you know, what are the main things that you think will come up this year that might be the same as they always have been? Or that might be quite different this year?
You know, one of the things I would say is that national politics has sucked the oxygen out of our culture in so many ways. And, you know, when we talk about news deserts, and I know Richard Watts is here, and he's for the Center for Community journalism, community news. And one of the things we talk about is that when local news goes away, the national conversation dominates that community as opposed to schools or roads or the hospital. So your point is well taken, Kelsey, but I think that, you know, national politics will take up as much air as you allow it to, and a lot of the things that are going on have happened at the state level. So I think there is a time for a kind of reassessment. If you're not a national organization, how you sort of proportion allies, what you're giving oxygen to?
I think that's such a great point. And I think that I mean, that's one of the reasons I'm heartened by the efforts of on the part of philanthropy to support and infuse local news. With major investments. I think it's so critical because they're, I mean, the organization that I used to used to work for the Oakland Tribune where I was the managing editor and editor in chief, the amount of reporting capacity that we once have, there's literally one reporter covering Oakland, thankfully now Oakland side is they're doing a great job and to be I'm on the board, so I just want to recognize that but the level of capacity to focus on the stories that are happening every day in communities is so essential. I think what frustrates me when I look at the national news is they could actually cover something else than Trump. There are many other issues. That these organizations could be putting a lens to, that are connected to the presidential election and have to do with the issues that would make people's lives better. And I don't understand it, when there's all this criticism of this individual. And yet, you can't you can't quit him. So why don't you just quit him? And I understand his ratings and it's one of the reasons why I think that for profit journalism is problematic. There. I feel like there are seven to eight things in our society that should be about unbridled profit, health care, housing, music, art, culture, prisons, transportation, food, and journalism. And if we had a world where those seven things were not about unbridled profit, think about how different things would be.
If I can I do want to say one thing that that though, that there's so much journalism that is still for profit, and I worry that a lot of emphasis is on startups. And it's almost like and I know this is something that duck at night and other people are you know we've discussed is we can't wait till something becomes a desert to try to fix it and in a lot of those places, those there for profits, then I'm making a whole lot of money. Maybe more than what you think but so that's my the thing I do worry about
will also I think you don't want to then I think Sarah Lomax Reese talks about this like you don't want to all of a sudden eliminate the opportunity for folks of color to start a for profit venture either, right? So like so now we gotta go all nonprofit. So I think there's it's complicated.
It is complicated and having worked at a national news organization for a really long time. I will say that what happens a lot is we'll parachute in to these local communities, not really understanding the local flavor and politics and that's a problematic model and there is a way for national news and local news. To partner better without national coming in and saying, We are smarter, we are stronger. We have more resources, which the resource? Undoubtedly Yes, you may have a lot more resources. But how do you use that to create and coalesce a stronger partnership with your local markets? Because they're, you know, even in broadcast, like local news is not doing well. And so how do you create more solid partnerships so that, to your point, you are really reporting on the issues that matter to those communities and I'm not sure that nationals getting that they're not getting that message that they really need to go beyond the ratings beyond the like, Trump just walked to the Rose Garden. Let's get our cameras there. I mean, there's this like Pac journalism mentality that still pervades national media. And so it's like how do we bring those bigger for profit companies into this conversation because it does feel like it's us versus them. Now being on this side of things.
I think national and legacy media still have a lot to learn from 2016 and 2020 that I hope is applied next. Year, but we'll see. I'll give some credit to CNN because I was watching the coverage last night of Trump arriving at the Fulton County Jail, and he did make remarks after he left before he got on the plane. And CNN very explicitly was like, we're not going to carry this live. If he actually says something that's newsworthy, we'll let you know. But we're not carrying this live. It's it's a difference. It's a small steps, small steps and you
know, we're having to teach young people how to how to find legitimate voices. And I think this is getting away from everybody being quoted, is like, you know, they'll ask how many sources seven? And no, it's like, what are the the voices that really help you tell an accurate story? And maybe that's one way I think less about you must have dei voices which voices are going to give you the most well rounded, you know, accurate, fully dimensional story. And when you put it in those terms, it sort of helps them you know, build a circle. Oh, I need this voice. But you know, this is a good counter. So I think that's you know, it doesn't have to be the same six people being quoted in every story. Yes, absolutely.
Okay, I think we do have an audience question we absolutely do. This one's from mine, Ivanka and AJ plus, how does the siloing or redlining of news at Legacy organizations, ie black verticals, queer verticals, etc, contribute to failure of news organizations to successfully integrate their coverage and their newsrooms?
Great question. We were just talking about this earlier. Yes.
Thank you. For the question. Yes, it is challenging. You know, in my, in my last organization, we had verticals that were Latino, black, queer, all of the verticals. I and I want to create space and say that they you know, those verticals do really incredible journalism, work that is not being done in the mainstream media and I use that, you know, in quotes, it it has siloed how we cover communities of color and marginalized communities and and it's not a conversation that's lost on leadership. I you know, it's because we, you know, having been part of the system bring that up, like, there were times I pitched stories with Latino characters that was said, you know, said to me, Well, why don't you pitch that to the Latino vertical? Because that's where that story belongs. And so it took me and a lot of other employees pushing back on that to say, you know, I don't understand why the story on education that happens to feature a Latino character cannot be on the evening news. Tonight, and needs to just be put into this vertical. So what I would say is, if you're in that situation, use your voice to to really highlight to folks in power and leadership and that make these editorial decisions that you know, what we're questioning if you can, and it's it's not always possible in every organization, we know that some leaders do not like to be questioned. And that's not leadership necessarily. So it's really hard. I say that understanding that there are politics involved it is it is problematic, it is challenging, but I don't want to negate the work that some of these verticals are doing because they're doing really great journalism. And it's really, I think more of us need to say like these stories are America stories. They are everyone's stories and need a bigger marketing budgets. They need to be also the a one to use an old term, like sometimes they have really great reporting that just doesn't surface and is not amplified in the same way
or if it's on the homepage at 3am. That does not
Yes, yes. And so that's the other challenge with creating these siloed verticals. It's not getting the same attention and love the other stories are getting I
want to quickly at the journalism research has the same issue. The Howard Journal of Communication is a great journal. It cannot run every piece on journalism research. And I think it's on certain organizations within journalism research, to not say everything has to go to the minority division or to this division, that it's important that this research is spread out all over the publications,
right. And I think the other way to think about it too, is like are you just checking a box by having these verticals Right? Like why do you have them if you're not going to celebrate and like amplify their work, and it's still just being read by us?
And Kelsey mentioned this earlier, but there is a business case as well. Right. Aside from editorial, you can actually make a business case for reaching these audiences and broader audience.
Absolutely. I mean, you just look at Entertainment, right? The movies like Black Panther broke records, like you just can look to movies that were made featuring all black casts all Latino cast, like well, more all black
women or women in that Latino breakout film, but women in lead roles. Yeah, those also do well. Yeah.
I would just say though, the thing is, if you tell these stories, they don't all have to be and I'm just learning these expressions deficit based. Yes. They don't have to be about pathology. You know, I did a study on stories about gunshot victims. just funny. I was talking to someone about to this morning, and instead of saying black people this story, which was based in Philadelphia, but was in a different publication, use names like Liz Sheikra and lawan. And so there were all these co workers to say, Oh, these about black people getting shot. So that's the other end of that. How do you tell the stories that aren't going back to Moynihan?
Right. Do you have one more or? Yes,
we have probably time for just one more question. And this will be needs to be probably pretty brief. Which is, what do you think the effect is of unions right now on these efforts? And are there any examples of unions doing this work well, and that's from Jean Saun. Resolve Philly.
Um, you know, I think you said the word unions on this work. You know, I think that that's not a bad thing. I think it's a good thing, but this is just me talking as an individual. I mean, unions existed for a reason they came about for a reason. And if news if they if they make newsrooms stronger, then I think that I personally, again, I'm not talking the position of the University of Texas at Austin, but I think there's a reason why unions were invented and there's a reason why unions exist.
And I think we're seeing unions emerge also in the nonprofit journalism space, as well. I work for a company that constantly had an antagonistic relationship with a bargaining unit. And so what I've been heartened by is to see some nonprofit news organizations actually, voluntarily recognize the efforts on the part of their workers to unionize and I think if you it doesn't inherently have to be, I guess it's a bit of an adversarial relationship, but it doesn't have to be volatile or hostile or hostile.
Okay, very briefly, because we do need to wrap up. What do you want people to take away from this conversation back to their newsrooms?
I would just like for you all to take back to your newsroom and understanding that we all have our work to do and that belonging is for all of us in service of the journalism that we want to do. But most importantly in service of the communities that need each and every one of you. And I want you to take back some hope and a little bit of rage, and a little bit of willingness to fight and to say what's important and to think about collective action. I can't believe as a journalist, I'm saying collective action. But the reality is we have to think of it that way. It's why we formed OMA with OMA and open news division 25 partnership because our we need help to amplify this work because the forces are pushing back against it.
I cosign all of that, and I will add that if you to use a really new your work cliche if you see something, say something, find people that are going to back you up, don't be you're not alone. If you're feeling like there is something that can change within your organization. guarantee there are others like you in that organization, seek them out. seek us out. We're an advocate. We're here to help we're allies. In you need career advice, my emails open. So please look us up push your employers to actually hire well and hire holistically and they can call us as well if if they want to talk about have that conversation in an open transparent way. We're here for that conversation.
And I would say if you're a leader, are you practicing radical listening are you really listening? And does everyone in your newsroom feel safe, emotionally, physically, and in terms of their career? Do people feel safe enough to tell you something that could make them do their job better? If they don't feel that safe, then I think you have more work to do as a leader.
Okay, Kathleen, Lenore Martin, thank you so much for your contributions to this conversation. Thank you.
Thank you so much.
Yes, I think people know but sit tight. We'll start a new next conversation. In just a second.
I did. So that's what I am.
Sorry,
said Gary.
Hello Hi everyone. If you can please. Hi Kim. If you can please take your seats. We are going to continue our conversation. give everyone just a second to settle down. Thank you so much for joining us. I am thrilled to continue this very important conversation on di and racial justice and equity with someone who has been a singular leading voice on this topic in our industry. Please join me in welcoming the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and creator of the 1619 project Nikole Hannah Jones to the stage.
Linko literally gotten to Philly like an hour ago. So yes, we need the warm welcome for her. Thank you so much for coming to Oma.
Thank you. I like the little little walk on music. That was awesome. I would have maybe chosen a different track but we'll go with it.
That's all right. We'll get it for the for the outgoing work. You heard a little bit of our conversation as you as you just came in. So we're talking about the status of dei in journalism promises that were made in 2020. Where we are now a lack of we've seen some progress, we would like to see a lot more. But just to sort of set the stage for the audience. What is your perspective on where we are in the industry right now when it comes to racial equity and justice?
First of all, Hey, everyone, wears the Shara just want to congratulate my Bulu Shara. So as you know, 2020 words allegedly a year of racial reckoning. I feel like I don't have to tell anyone in this room. how fleeting that was and how many of us who cover issues of race, race and injustice or who does you know, have any understanding of America knew that it was going to be fleeting? And we didn't clearly see a lot of pride progress. We saw. I think for a while coverage was really altered. We were seeing a lot of attention being paid. Not just to the racist of the week, but actually trying to report on structural racism on entrenched racism. And then we saw of course, a larger backlash to the reckoning. And we experienced that in our newsrooms as well. So I think that there was a sense in many newsrooms, that there was an overcorrection that maybe the coverage had gone too far, one way, and now we needed to come back. And I think part of that was a sense that externally, that people were thinking that newsrooms were going too far to the left. But I also think internally amongst a lot of our colleagues, there was a sense that we were paying too much attention to racial justice and a discomfort with how far that had gone. And so we've seen really the coverage so one we haven't, we haven't made a lot of progress on diversifying newsrooms. And certainly, I think the coverage has gone in an almost completely different direction where we started really paying. I think we should of course report on the more conservative viewpoint, but we began to center that as being more problematic than the actual racial injustice right that students who would be protesting a certain speaker on campus were being given the same weight in news coverage as the state right of governors of legislatures or school board actually using the powers of government in the state to censor, so I think many of us are feeling that every time there's our racial progress, there's also racist progress, and it's not saying whether people are being intentionally racist or not, but just an overall discomfort with trying to enact real change.
Now, there's been a lot of backlash to the 1619 project, right. And we've seen I don't know if you've heard if you watch Fox News ever, I wouldn't budge anyone.
I'm sitting next to someone on Delta who's watching Fox News.
That's always a fun time that we've also seen this against dei in general, right. The buzzwords like it's critical race theory, the idea of even trying to name white supremacy and our systems and our institutions. Has anything about this backlash in the last few years surprised you?
You mean the backlash to the 1619 project in general, or just the overall backlash
to the 1619 project in general? Yeah, I
mean, yes, I think most of both the duration of the backlash and the extremity of it has been surprising to me. I knew that there would be backlash to the project. And in some ways, if there hadn't been, I wouldn't have found the project successful. Right. The project was intentionally being evocative. We were trying to make an argument about America that hadn't been mainstreamed enough for for my tastes, so I expected that but of course, you could not have predicted that the 6019 project would be the target of federal legislation trying to ban it from the classroom. state legislation banning it from the classroom. It was mentioned in both of Donald Trump's impeachment trials, which is just insane to me. It was used in of course, it was deployed against the first black woman Supreme Court justice in her confirmation hearing. And it really is the seed that led to the larger anti critical race theory, propaganda campaign. So all of these bills these anti critical race theory bills began with anti 6019 Project bills, and then they expanded out so in all of these bills, if there is a single text meant mentioned, a text mentioned, it is only the 6019 project that's actually being banned. legislatively, and so no, I I couldn't have predicted any of that and I couldn't have predicted how the 6019 project and this again, propaganda terminology in the way that they're using critical race theory would be com kind of central to the political campaign now. Could I predict that race would be used as a wedge issue? Of course, race is the oldest wedge issue in America. But that, you know, something is, to me benign as a single newspaper project that it could become kind of central to these campaigns has been very startling. But also what's been really disappointing is how media has covered what has happened. I think that media has really failed to grasp the danger of these anti critical race theory legislation to cover them in an appropriate way that this is state sponsored censorship that you cannot equate people protesting something to the state prohibiting ideas and speech that it doesn't like. And because we've covered it that way, we sort of legitimize what's happening. I mean, to me, the fact that Ron DeSantis is considered a legitimate Republican contender for the presidency. When you look at the policies which you read a book called how democracy dies. He meets the checklist, right of like proto fascism, like the policies that he's enacting and yet, we as journalists really don't know again, how to cover someone who is openly enacting authoritarian policies. We haven't learned from Donald Trump and we haven't learned how to cover someone who is has a more respectable veneer than Donald Trump. So that's really what worries me most is our continuing failures as journalists to grapple with how to cover what we're seeing in our politics.
I think even some of the language that you're using is so important, right? And that's something that I'd hope becomes more mainstream in newsrooms, propaganda campaigns state sponsored censorship. There are all sorts of euphemisms or more softer language that a lot of news organizations are using, I started covering these issues. It feeds into this idea of false objectivity right false equivalencies, when we're talking about the two political parties or the two ideological sides, how did you come to be so aware of how important that nuance languages and you know, what is your advice to up and coming journalists who need to learn these same lessons?
So it's a fascinating question. I mean, one, I think, and why I think it's fascinating is of course, as journalists, we understand by profession by trade the power of words, right? Like that's literally what we do is we understand that words have power words can change how we think about any given issue based on what terminology we use, and yet somehow when it comes to covering what's happening in our own country, we no longer know how to use direct terminology. We no longer know how to use the dictionary definition of what is happening. So it's always interesting to look at how we cover similar things in other countries, like how did we cover what was happening in Brazil? Versus what was happening in the United States? And how are we so able to with clarity call out when we're seeing these things, and other countries, but don't want to use the language here? Like how many times have we seen euphemisms for racism, racially tinged tinge is what does that mean? It means nothing really means nothing right? And yet, what it speaks to is the discomfort of the journalist. And that's not objective. So we have a profession that's at once telling us we have to be objective, but you can't call Trump a liar because that might make us look biased. Well, actually, I think, not telling the truth makes us look biased. And that you know, you cannot, you know, pretend to have balance in an unbalanced system. It doesn't mean of course, that journalism does not have to hold the other political party Democrats accountable, but we cannot pretend that they are doing the same things. Right. And so we can't say, well, we wrote a story that reflects negatively on Republicans. So now we have to write one that reflects negatively on Democrats, when there's one political party that clearly is issuing all democratic norms where you have people who are saying, we don't actually believe in democracy, we don't think all citizens should vote. You have to cover it in that way. And I think we're very self conscious to to a degree that we don't inform the public because of that. So I've been, you know, that's one of the reasons why I founded the Center for journalism and democracy at Howard University, because I really felt that in this time, where the press is the firewall of our democracy, where the press has to be part of that system of checks and balances that we believe ourselves to be that we were too often failing in that duty. And then instead of reporting about truth, we were reporting about power, and we were reflecting power and not truth and we were reflecting our own fear that we'll be called biased, and by doing so, creating a very biased report that wasn't informing the public so I think, you know, I come up I've always worked in quote unquote, mainstream media, but I get my my journalistic viewpoint from the black press, write a press that doesn't pretend the journalism is advocacy, a press that could not pretend that you're reporting on a country that's on your side, right, that can't pretend that our systems will hold that, that we can ensure that our rights will be protected, because they have always been like, I come from a tradition where, you know, it's amazing that by nature, we are supposed to be a skeptical profession. And if y'all went to journalism schools similar to mine, one of the first things you learn you know, in journalism reporting one on one, and if your mother says she loves you check it out. Right. We all we all heard this. And yet too often, we're not reporting but that skepticism when it comes to power, and we're not internalizing that skepticism when we look at our own report, so that to me is like I I understand that language can either reveal or obscure and too often, we're using language that obscures language that softens what's happening to in our country, and then that means that people the public cannot be informed enough to know we are in a dangerous period and our institutions may not hold there are places where they're not holding the attacks on not just the 6019 project and what they're calling critical race theory but on Black Studies, right. This is all about D legitimizing certain people in certain voters to clear the way for anti democratic policies. And I really think I would invite you all we're having our second annual democracy summit at Howard on November 14. It is a summit where we bring experts who can tell us what we're seeing and explained to us from political science viewpoint but also historical context. With the data. It is geared towards journalists, because I just think too many of us haven't studied enough history. We are not contextualizing what we're seeing. And if, if our political reporters the demographics are often not reflective of the country, not reflective of the people who are most marginalized and so I think they really do think in the end, our systems were hold. If you come from the black perspective, you know that that is not the case. And you cover what's happening very differently. But we all as journalists have the ability to cover what we're seeing without that having to be your personal experience, but you have to actually do the research
in so many organizations. Why do you think that fear of appearing bias seems to be more acute than a fear of appearing inaccurate? It's what you were saying. Like you have to you have to call a spade a spade right as journalists. That's our job and yet the bias fear seems to overpower the idea that we should just be accurate to what's going on in reality.
You know, it's an interesting question, because it seems that we are much much more beholden to what conservatives think about us than what people who consider themselves progressive and I think it's because we get the label as a profession. I think we like to think of ourselves as a profession as being more progressive, right? And so because we think we are progressive, which I don't actually think that's true. I look at the coverage every day and I'm like, that's, it's not progressive, but we think that we are and because we think that we are than we are especially worried when people on the right say we're being unfair, because, of course, most of our newsrooms still do believe in this idea of objectivity. I think, you know, we come out of a generation where this notion of balance is very important. It took a long time, think about even something like climate change. For a very long time. There was a sense that if you if you talk about climate change, you have to give climate deniers equal, you know, equal play in a news article, so that you appear to be fair, but to me what is more important is accuracy, right? Is it accurate? Is client climate denialism true? Or is this just what a small number of people say? So you don't give them balance in the story or you're not actually painting an accurate picture? I don't believe our job is to be stenographers, right I didn't get into journalism. Just to say this person said this, and this person said that I got into journalism to inform and to inform you have to get to the truth of it as best as you can. And too many of us are so worried that someone will accuse us of being biased against the right that our coverage actually then veers away from truth. And I think the idea you know, you're a journalist of color, you come from a marginalized group, people presume to know your bias, right? They literally think you were your bias on your skin. And yes, I am biased, right? I'm a human being. But the white male journalist or the white upper class journalist actually thinks they are neutral. They're the default point of view, right? They're not biased that their perspective is neutral. And they're not right. They're also growing up in a racialized society, their class, their gender are all affecting how they see coverage. But we only call it out when when we think that you are not the norm. And what that leads to to me is covers it too often fails that too often is not reflective of the realities of people on the ground. I mean, look in a city like Philadelphia, look at the daily newspaper, right look at the makeup of the newsroom and look at the makeup at the city. Then the on your front page. And this is I'm saying Philadelphia because I'm in Philadelphia, but Detroit, New York, Los Angeles, and look on the front page and say does that reflect the community or does that reflect power? And every day we see a reflection of power but not what's actually happening, and for most of the citizens, and that is a choice and that is a bias.
Now, you mentioned Ron DeSantis. We in our previous conversation, we were talking about the movements at the state level. For more of these bands. The idea that book bands are, you know increasingly common What do you think newsroom should be focusing on in terms of coverage? Like what are the stories or focus areas that you want to see more of?
So one, if you all saw an investigative piece that Nicole Carr at ProPublica did a few weeks ago to me this exemplified both the failures in the profession and what we can do when we're actually trying to report accurately on what's happening. So if you haven't seen it, she did this amazing piece on the mom's liberty, where so we all know this is a racialized movement. Clearly, right. This is a white woman's movement. And yet so many journalists were afraid to call it that, like we can see it. And so writing about moms for liberty and not pointing out that it is a white woman's really White Nationalist Movement, to me means you are not reporting the truth. So when Nicole Carr did is she looked at the coverage, she was being frustrated by the coverage, but this is where we as journalists have power, right? We have some of the greatest power in our country, and that we see something that's not being covered correctly, that the public is not being informed, and we have the ability to provide that coverage. So she did. She got all every video that she could find moms for Liberty coming to a school board meeting or any other type of meeting. And then she just created a database. What was the race of the speakers? Was the gender of the speakers. What did they talk about? Who What was the race of the supporters? And she was able to then write with authority that this was a white woman's white nationalist movement, she was able to cite the thing that we're all saying that journalists were afraid to do. This is the type of coverage that we need to be seeing. How many stories have we seen on what it's like to be a black parent in Florida right now? How many how many stories have we seen about what it's like? To be a black child in a school district where the books about your people are being taken off the shelves? Or frankly, to just be a child in a school district when you come in and see the library has been cordoned off? Where's the story that's connecting the history of Florida like we think of Florida as Miami, Florida is a deep south state. If you look at the history of Florida, Florida had some of the worst racial terrorism racist terrorism in the history of our country, but we're not covering what we're seeing there in that way. We're not covering why the black community is so vulnerable black communities in Florida, so I just think we need to have a lot more depth in the coverage and not allowing ourselves because we're uncomfortable writing about racialized movements in a racialized way to not then cover these movements accurately. I also just think again, when we're talking about language, what Ron DeSantis is doing is authoritarian. Now, I don't think we should just throw out words you will never see really in anything I've ever written. I don't call anything white supremacist, unless it's in a historical document. Because I actually don't think that term is that useful. And I think when people see white supremacist, they automatically are turned off. So just say what we're seeing, right? Be specific and call out what we're seeing. But we were using race neutral language in a time even Ron DeSantis what he's doing right when he's targeting voters, when he's gerrymandering out black electoral districts, he is speaking to a racial demographic that we are not reporting on explicitly, because we think the only way we can call out something as racist is you have to say the N word. And then if you say the N word, and you apologize, then we'll still say, well, maybe it wasn't racist. Maybe he didn't. Really mean to do that. You have to have dexterity with how race works in America to cover what's happening in our politics right now. And to many of us do not study history. You have to I don't think, you know, I remember right after January 6, and on every news channel, I was watching you have pundits who are saying we've never seen anything like this in the history of our country. That this is exactly why we see the attempts to a race the teaching of an accurate history of America right the teaching of Black history is inherently political, because if you teach the history of black people in this country, you're automatically dispelling the myth of America. We're very inconvenient to the you know, story of American Greatness. So when you have people who are saying nothing like this has ever happened, I know you don't actually know anything about history in America. And frankly, you have abdicated your role as a journalist when you do that. There's, of course Wilmington, which was an actual coup, but there's also an entire period of reconstruction, where democratically elected governments by racial governments governments that are reflected reflective of the Democratic party today, were overturned where people challenged the elections where they overthrew elections, where they discarded both everything that we're seeing now has happened before, and yet journalists are covering it from a perspective that all of this is new. And when you don't understand that, that this is very old, and you don't understand that actually, what we're seeing now is where our politics have always been inclined to go. Right, even thinking we're the oldest democracy in the world. If Black people aren't part of democracy, then yes, that's true. But if black people are a part of democracy, then we don't get democracy until 1965. And it's always been contested. So understanding that history, that it's that multiracial democracy has always been contested. Then you cover what you're seeing in America very differently. And then you inform the electorate in a way that's actually useful for them politically, as opposed to the reactive and reactionary way that we tend to cover politics.
The local aspect of it that you're mentioning is so important. I'm from Louisiana, born and raised. It's I don't know how many people here know about the Colfax massacre, but it was the biggest deadliest massacre of the Reconstruction Era happened in central Louisiana, again, born and raised, grew up there. Never heard about this until I was out of college. I actually learned about it from you know, somebody who wasn't even from Louisiana, and finally we're at the stage where they did put up a memorial last year in Colfax and I was able to visit it and they're starting to teach actually the local populations about what actually happened and the history of this. But what have you seen in terms of trying to expand people's understanding of what American history actually
is? Yeah. And so I'm going to answer that, but I think that's such a great example. Because again, I mean, I'm a history nerd, obviously. Right? So I'm not saying everybody has to be as nerdy as me, but having some basis of understanding why does that historical context matter? So when we see the gerrymandering that's occurring? Today, or we see so called race neutral policies that make it harder for black and brown people to vote, and then we say, well, they don't mention race. So how can this be a policy designed against certain races? Well, if you study history, then you know when the fifth after the 15th Amendment, you could no longer explicitly target voters by race. The grandfather clauses were race neutral. Okay, Grandfather Clause does not say black people can vote. It says you can vote if your grandfather didn't vote, and since 95% of black people were enslaved, their grandfathers were enslaved. That means black people can't vote, literacy tests, race neutral. Write tests that say you have to recite the Constitution, race neutral, but they were all designed to be race specific and to have race specific impact even though they were race neutral. So if you don't know that history, if we are stripped from that historical context, this is really why you know all of these anti history laws, our memory laws, read Timothy Snyder, if you have it, they're not everything that happened in the past happened. But what you know and remember about what happened in the past then shapes your understanding of the society that you live in journalists have to have a basis of that understanding. If they are going to help us to know why our society is responding in the way that it is. You can actually predict a lot of what we're seeing if you have that historical context, which I don't think answered your question, but just read history.
Just reassurance good advice. Good advice. To that end. Were you surprised by January 6 when it happened?
Yes, I mean, I think you can. Yes. I don't think anyone will be honest to say they really expected a coup on the Capitol. So I was surprised by it. But when can you be surprised and not shocked? Yes. So yes, I was surprised that in that year, you would see that happening, but knowing history and again, understanding that we have a deep seated, anti democratic thread that has always existed in our country, and that even our founders, they didn't intend a multiracial democracy. They didn't intend that people who are not white men would determine who leads our country and that we've never been a country that actually wanted that. So again, in the book, how democracies die, I recommend that you get it. It's very short. They talk about how until 1965 We didn't have a democracy United States we had a ethnocracy I've never had the term for what we actually had in this country but it was a democracy for one ethnic group. And that everything that we're seeing is a society a majority society. I think a minority of the majority society that did not ever believe that we should be a country where people of color decide elections and we are seeing the response to that. So what happens with Obama in 2008, you are able to elect a black man with a minority of the white vote. So of course after Obama, white people be like racism is over. We elected Obama, but actually y'all did not elect Obama. Most white Americans voted against Obama. But you can have a minority of the white vote and heavy majorities of every other person who was not white, and take sent a black man to the White House. This shifts something in our society right there's just something amongst a significant proportion of the white electorate who feels they are losing power, where they had the exclusive control over who got elected. And those people would always be white. And now you have a increasingly diverse country where we as journalists are always saying we're going to be majority minority. Please. If you take one thing No, don't don't let this be the only thing you take away from my talk. But one of the things don't use that phrase. Don't use that like We're journalists and we are we we should use accurate and specific language, majority and minority or numeric terms. Either you are more than half or you're less than half. So every time we use majority minority, what we're saying is that minority is a status. It is an inferior status in society, and one day we will be ruled by our inferiors, that is what using language majority minority means. What we will thank you it's just we have to think about right it's dangerous is the length the lexicon is dangerous. What we will have is a plurality, which is not a bad thing in a multiracial democracy, where white Americans still hold the power and are still the largest ethnic racial group in our society. That is the truth. So every time we use those times so you have a multiracial minority white electorate that Alexa black man to the highest office in the land, and then you have the constant drumbeat for media saying in 50 years why people are going to lose the mind majority, and they're going to we're going to be a minority majority country. And that creates a great deal of fear and hostility that we are now seeing and paying the consequences for. So we have to take ownership on the role that we as media, play when we use that language when we don't tell the truth, when we're not accurate, and we and we ourselves are uncomfortable with the society that we have. So when you ask about Dei, I think the lack of progress speaks to the discomfort of people who run newsrooms of actually not wanting to see the newsroom change, not actually wanting to see the coverage change. Right. If you've been in this profession long enough, Lord, sometimes it's hard to admit how long I've been in the profession because then I had to admit I'm old as hell. But I've seen every you know, I've seen us go through periods where we have all kinds of race beats, and then all those beats go away. And then something crazy happens in America, having to do with race, George Floyd, and then all of a sudden everybody wants to create a race beat again, but don't actually try to cover race, the way that it needs to be covered, which is not this person said something racist. This person says something racist, but in a way that critique structures and power, then that's going to be a problem, and then it's a fad, and then we get rid of it. If you cover a beat in America, you should be covering race. There is nothing that you can cover. Now this was how I became a successful race rider because I'm like, I don't give a damn you could put me on education, cops, county government, environment, whatever you put me on, I can I will write about race because it's everywhere. But too many of us are abdicating our responsibility to have an understanding of how race works in our society, no matter what your beat is. I am not a great writer about these issues because I was born black in America. That certainly helps me in how I see stories, but it's because I study this as an area of expertise. I read the history the sociology, I study the data, right? The same way you wouldn't be a science reporter and not study the literature of science and get expertise in science. How can you cover these issues, when you have no knowledge outside of you walk around in the skin that you're in? So we all need to be doing that we all need to be trying to get a better understanding to contextualize for ourselves, and then to contextualize for our public what it is that we're seeing, and really the truly dangerous moment like there's people right now who think you know, Trump got indicted. He got arrested, that our systems are working. Well, I would tell you as a black person who studies history, I won't believe our systems are working until they've actually worked and we don't know what is going to come out of this. But clearly that man can get elected again. Clearly, our systems can start to work and still erode. And so let's have that natural skepticism that we are supposed to inherently have as journalists. We're too often I think we believe in the mythology of America. And so we cover our country in that way.
At the Republican debate on Wednesday night, the majority of candidates there so they they raise their hands, but they would still support Donald Trump as the nominee, even if he's convicted. I wanted to ask you about that briefly, because I know you've said that Donald Trump attacking the 1619 projects like you can't imagine a bigger badge of honor. Where were you last night when he was being booked? And you saw the mugshot come out?
I was actually not paying attention to this shit at all. I really,
I really, I didn't you know, it's like I get the highlights later. Because I do. I don't know what it means and I don't try to predict the future. I've learned enough to know. We can't predict what is going to happen or not. And there is something I mean, I tweeted about this there is something divine about black women, right being the ones who have the courage and the rigor to bring these cases forth when our Justice Department was unwilling to do it when our political system was unwilling to do it, that black women truly are the saviors of democracy. Once again, once again. It would be nice if democracy once in a while had our back and return but you know, we're gonna do what we came to do. So there's something there's just I mean, as much as you critique America, there is something amazing that that moment could happen in that way. In Atlanta right in the deep south in a city where black people have, have gained power, and have played the role that black people have always played, which is to be on the very bottom of society to be written out of democracy and yet fervently believe in the potential of it and being willing to risk everything right this woman is getting death threats. There's no reason to believe she wouldn't necessarily succeed in this country. She's in a state where they've already passed a bill through the legislature that would make it easier for her to be removed from office as we saw DeSantis remove a duly elected black woman from office in Florida, and yet is willing to risk all of that for democracy. So again, think how we cover these things. Are we seeing that story being written? Are we seeing that story shaping our perception of what's happening right now, so I wasn't watching it. But I just enjoyed seeing all the memes all the memes the recaps. Because I actually find for me personally, I'm not a political reporter. So I don't have to be glued to every you know, into what's happening. That is more healthy for me not to watch this all the time and try to step back and see what's the larger story at play.
And to your point about what stories are we seeing I've seen some of this, but I would like to see more. The black woman who were also just the everyday poll workers that are being intimidated by the sitting president at the time, and the death threats that they are now facing because they were just trying to do their job and do it right. I know we need to wrap up soon. I feel like I could talk to you forever. And I know that this audience would be here forever for that too. But we've got this wonderful room full of newsroom leaders, managers, journalists, editors, reporters. What do you want them to take back to their newsrooms?
I hate when I have to come up with some inspirational at the end. It doesn't have to be inspirational. Good because I'm not I'm not inspirational. I don't I don't seek to inspire I disagree with shame. I like to shame
you know, but but actually,
I'm gonna. I'm feeling a little out of sorts, which means I feel a little bit inspirational. So I'm going to leave with something. I actually think I really do that. We are some of the luckiest people in this country. To work in this profession. As much as we get down on it. As much as you know, our colleagues are often struggling to make ends meet or even keep their jobs as much as we complain about our failures. We have the power to see things in our society that aren't right and do something right. And that's something you know, even when the affirmative action ruling came out, and seeing predictably that with this court, and were blown was not just going to target what is happening at the collegiate level, but that he was going to go after really any programs that are designed to benefit descendants of slavery. I can feel really down about that. And then I can say, I want to write something to expose what I really think is happening and to force people to have to think differently about this and to try to give us a roadmap of where we can go. That's a that's an amazing power to have. And I imagine everyone in this room, at least I hope takes that power very seriously, and that it's okay to be down but don't see that power. So go back to your newsrooms and cover what needs to be covered and do the work that needs to be done and understanding that you may not see I mean, I write about the most intense shit in America like I was, like probably the only investigative reporter who's like no matter what I write, no, she's going to ever change which is not typically why you get into investigative reporting, right? You're expecting some head to roll no head will ever roll when I'm writing about segregation and housing segregation in schools. But I write because I need to create the record. I need to try to create the tension that can lead to that societal change. And so just go back, talk shit because that's what reporters do. We are complaining bunch and it's our right to complain and then you know, go out there and do the work that needs to be done this. This is a time where if you didn't know how important our work was to the very democratic fiber of our country. I think that is very clear. And it's not just the national reporters. Most of what is hurting people, most of what affects people is happening at the local level. And that reporting is so critical right now. So just go out there and fucking kick ass and do what we got in this profession to do no matter what because every day, I never have to wake up in the morning. And say, I don't want to do my job. Every day. I'm just excited that I have the privilege of doing the work that I do and I hope you all do as well.
Thank you so much. I think that is a brilliant note to end on. You saying you're not inspirational, but that was very inspirational. I'll do one One quick last question because I'm just I love hearing and watching you speak about this when you're constantly being attacked. How do you keep your focus and your confidence in your belief and the importance of your work?
Well, my Erin, are you still over there? Aaron? Well, no, I didn't always keep my focus. And actually, if any of you follow me on Twitter, you know, there was some days you were like this happened. He said put that phone down but you know, what I'll say is I understand where the attacks are coming from the work was insignificant. If the work didn't matter if they didn't worry that a public that is more informed about why we have the inequality that we have would choose different policies. You don't spend your time attacking things that don't matter. Right you don't try to discredit work that is insignificant. So the focus for me is easy. No, my name is Ida Ida B. Wells on Twitter, of course, pay homage to Ida B. Wells. I've been rereading. I just finished rereading her autobiography. And I've been rereading her work, you know, the read record. And I'm like, if this woman living at the time that she lived in, could be fearless is easy. What I do every day is easy. I work at the New York Times I have the biggest megaphone in the world. I have protection if I need it. So I don't require motivation. Again, I really do just feel tremendously blessed and I'm an Aries. So I love conflict. I love I love like, come at me bow. I have time though. I'm doing better. I'm doing better. I try to at least I try to at least not argue with people who have less than five Twitter followers have good rule of thumb. Yeah, don't do that. And it's actually been very healthy for me to stop engaging on social in that way. But again, like we just have, it's just amazing what we get paid to do every day. And so it's it's easy for me to keep going and it's easy to be motivated. And frankly, like all of you who as I was going through these attacks were sending me like Damn you didn't even know me. I don't know you and saying how important it was the work and to see that I've tried to stand up not just for myself but other marginalized journalists, other marginalized professors that has just it's hardened me and it's helped me in my darker days. So again, grateful that everyone is even sitting up in his room listening to me right now and truly. I hope that I will continue to be a door opener for others coming behind me and that you will continue to support the work.
Nicole Hannah Jones, thank you so much. Thank you very much for your work and your time.
