The 2016 presidential election exposed racial fault lines to reveal a deeply fractured country, with citizens who are strangers to one another. We’ve been here before, but what will we say now about race in America?
For some, the work will be what it has always been: attempting to right wrongs by telling the stories of the unseen and unheard. We know now that must also include white people — but not only the ones at the center of the Recent Unpleasantness.
While much has been made about the angry Rust Belt voters we did not know, there was another group we failed to cover — the voters we did know: our neighbors, friends and relatives who made choices we didn’t expect or, according to the polls, didn’t believe they would on Election Day. Talking to them could also yield new insights, if we’re ready to lay down old assumptions. And with renewed interest in the “inner city” — expressed by the president-elect on the campaign trail — must come a renewed commitment to journalism that takes a view of these communities that is more focused on their humanity than body counts.
Next year marks the 50th anniversary of the 1967 race riots that roiled cities like Newark, Detroit, and Cleveland. In their wake, the country asked how and why racial tensions exploded after years of unrest and in the wake of some racial progress. The result of that inquiry was the Kerner Report, commissioned the same year by President Lyndon Johnson. Completed in 1968, the report described a nation “moving toward two societies…separate and unequal.”
Its lessons remain salient, urgent, and befitting the moment as we ponder America’s next chapter and the future of our country’s journalism. Among them: to show up in communities, and not just in times of crisis; to report on the daily lives of minorities in a way that normalizes them to the rest of America; and that newsrooms must hire decision-makers, not just reporters, who are reflective of the communities we cover.
Errin Haines Whack covers urban affairs for the Associated Press.
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Amie Ferris-Rotman Вслед за Россией
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Mandy Velez The audience is the source and the story
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Liz McMillen The year of deep insights
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Sydette Harry Facing journalism’s history
Julia Beizer Building a coherent core identity
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Amy Webb Journalism as a service
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Rachel Schallom Stop flying over the flyover states
Jim Friedlich A banner year for venture philanthropy
Claire Wardle Verification takes center stage
Bill Keller A healthy skepticism about data
Ashley C. Woods Local journalism will fight a new fight
Errin Haines Chaos or community?
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Melody Kramer Radically rethinking design
Jonathan Hunt Measurement companies get with the times
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Mary Walter-Brown Getting comfortable asking for money
Jon Slade Trusted news, at a premium
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Ståle Grut The battle for high-quality VR
Katie Zhu The year of minority media
Tim Herrera The safe space of service journalism
Jeremy Barr A terrible year for Tiers B through D
P. Kim Bui The year journalism teaches again
Renée Kaplan Pure reach has reached its limit
Megan H. Chan Cultural reporting goes mainstream
Lam Thuy Vo The primary source in the age of mechanical multiplication
Swati Sharma Failing diversity is failing journalism
Sarah Wolozin Virtual reality on the open web
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Maria Bustillos “It’s true — I saw it on Facebook”
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