Abstract
Over the course of the “racial reckoning” in 2020, racialized and Indigenous journalists in the United States and Canada called out news organizations for the systemic racism reflected in news content that all too often lacks context, plays to stereotypes, and fails to grasp the lived experiences of non-white people in society. After the police murder of George Floyd, as Black Lives Matter grew from protests against lethal police brutality into a global movement, these journalists described their own frustrations with discrimination in scores of columns, social media posts, podcasts, and other published media accounts. In so doing, they forced pillars of the North American news industry – The New York Times, The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), The Washington Post, The Toronto Star, National Public Radio, The Globe and Mail, The Los Angeles Times – to “reckon” with a history of racist news coverage and hiring practices extending to the present. This paper examines the response of those organizations and others to the journalists’ calls for reform, ranging from the Los Angeles Times’ special edition detailing its own complicity in racism, to layoffs of racialized staff at Global News in Canada. It breaks down the reactions of specific news media in the context of previous research on diversity and inclusion in journalism. The author interprets the findings through the lens of colonialism and critical race theory, concluding that real change will only come when journalistic practice is uncoupled from the white dominance on which it was founded.
Presenters
Brad ClarkAssociate Professor, Broadcast Media Studies and Journalism, Mount Royal University, Alberta, Canada
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Journalism, News Media, Racial Reckoning, Racism, Diversity, Inclusion, White Supremacy
