What can newsrooms do to recruit more people from diverse backgrounds, and encourage more minorities into leadership roles? What opportunities, if any at all, are really out there for aspiring journalists of color to enter the field? What does it feel like — really feel like, on a day-to-day level — to be one of the very few people of color in a media organization? (New data from ASNE released this week found that only about 12 percent of journalists in newspaper newsrooms surveyed were non-white — a number slightly lower than a decade ago — and many corners of the broadcast and online journalism world don’t fare much better.)

A lively discussion on all of the above and more has been taking place on Twitter for the past day and a half, spurred by CNN politics reporter and former New York Times writer Tanzina Vega and other journalists like Gene Demby of NPR’s Code Switch and Latoya Peterson of Fusion. (It’s still going strong: look out for the hashtag #mediadiversity to follow the conversation.)

We've been going strong for 24 hours here! Join us! #MediaDiversity https://t.co/9bcrt2619v

— Tanzina Vega (@tanzinavega) July 29, 2015

Ya'll,people are paying attn to this convo. Just got a SiriusXM radio request for an interview abt #mediadiversity.

— Tanzina Vega (@tanzinavega) July 29, 2015

The outpouring of responses has been a mix of disheartening and inspiring, as journalists shared current statistics on newsroom diversity as well as deeply personal stories of how they struggled to get their first big break into the news business. Here are Vega and Lydia Polgreen of The New York Times:

.@tanzinavega for me it meant working at an unpaid internship during the day, waiting tables at night. #mediadiversity

— Lydia Polgreen (@lpolgreen) July 29, 2015

Here’s Demby on how he first joined the Times at age 24:

i saw a pretty girl on the A train with a huge afro. and you should never attempt a public transit holler but i hollered.

— Gene Demby (@GeeDee215) July 29, 2015

we ended up dating. she was a designer at the NYT Mag. she would tell me that i should give her my resume.

— Gene Demby (@GeeDee215) July 29, 2015

i was like, "uh, i have no degree and blah blah blah." she was like, "BOY, GIVE ME YOUR RESUME."

— Gene Demby (@GeeDee215) July 29, 2015

she gave her bosses my resume. they brought me in for an interview. i wore a cheap suit that was way too big bc it was all i had.

— Gene Demby (@GeeDee215) July 29, 2015

and Erika Sommer offered me a job as a news clerk. And that shit literally changed my life.

— Gene Demby (@GeeDee215) July 29, 2015

Many highlighted the isolation of working in a mostly-white newsroom:

but look. right now, i'm one of…six?…black dudes in NPR's newsroom. At the Huffington Post I was one of…four.

— Gene Demby (@GeeDee215) July 29, 2015

But the thing about those internships is they can be lonely. Away from friends and family AND you may be the only POC in a newsroom.

— Justin Ellis (@JustinNXT) July 29, 2015

And the importance of a network of other writers of color:

And that's how i met @shani_o and @byjoelanderson and @jbouie and @angelaflournoy and @djjalen…

— Gene Demby (@GeeDee215) July 29, 2015

…and we all put each other on, whenever we could. "you should apply to this fellowship, Jamelle!" etc.

— Gene Demby (@GeeDee215) July 29, 2015

Others weighed in on the need for diversity among editors too, not just journalists:

One of best way news organizations can improve their hiring is to ensure they do so among editors. We need to be in the room. @tanzinavega

— David Cazares (@dpcazares) July 29, 2015

As of last year, minority groups made up 22.4 percent of television journalists, 13 percent of radio journalists, and 13.34 percent of journalists at daily papers — but account for more than 37 percent of the U.S. population. The problem, as Alex T. Williams points out, is not that minorities aren’t interested, the problem may be in the hiring process: 49 percent of minorities who studied print or broadcasting in college landed a full-time job, compared to 66 percent of white graduates.

The conversation about media diversity on Twitter opens up a window into what remains to make newsrooms more representative of the demographics they serve.