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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Maria Bustillos “It’s true — I saw it on Facebook”
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Katie Zhu The year of minority media
Alexis Lloyd Public trust for private realities
Laura Walker Authentic voices, not fake news
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Jeremy Barr A terrible year for Tiers B through D
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Tim Griggs The year we stop taking sides
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Guy Raz Inspiration and hope will matter more than ever
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Bill Keller A healthy skepticism about data
Robert Hernandez History will exclude you, again
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Elizabeth Jensen Trust depends on the details
Andrew Ramsammy Rise of the rebel journalist
Liz McMillen The year of deep insights
Matt Waite The people running the media are the problem
Alice Antheaume A new test for French media
Claire Wardle Verification takes center stage
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Liz Danzico The triumph of the small
Hillary Frey Forests need to burn to regrow
Michael Kuntz Trust is the new click
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Truthiness in private spaces
Erin Millar The bottom falls out of Canadian media
Sarah Marshall Focusing on the why of the click
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Margarita Noriega From pinning tweets to tweeting pins
Aja Bogdanoff Comments start pulling their weight
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Jonathan Stray A boom in responsible conservative media
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Rebekah Monson Journalism is community-as-a-service
Swati Sharma Failing diversity is failing journalism
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Sydette Harry Facing journalism’s history
Ashley C. Woods Local journalism will fight a new fight
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Zizi Papacharissi Distracted journalism looks in the mirror
P. Kim Bui The year journalism teaches again
Ken Schwencke Disaggregation and collection
Carrie Brown-Smith We won’t do enough
Mathew Ingram The Faustian Facebook dance continues
Peter Sterne A dangerous anti-press mix
Kathleen Kingsbury Print as a premium offering
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Megan H. Chan Cultural reporting goes mainstream
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Doris Truong Connecting with diverse perspectives
Taylor Lorenz “Selfie journalism” becomes a thing
Michael Oreskes Reversing the erosion of democracy
Ray Soto VR moves from experiments to immersion
Tanya Cordrey The resurgence of reach
Ole Reißmann Un-faking the news
Richard Tofel The country doesn’t trust us — but they do believe us
Sara M. Watson There is no neutral interface
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Ariane Bernard Better data about your users
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