In the Jewish religion, we celebrate the new year in the fall. It’s a solemn time of holiness and hope, a time of repentance, reflection, and committing to righteous acts in the year ahead.
Before we turn the page on 2020, we white journalists should reflect and repent for each of our roles in perpetuating racial inequity in our newsrooms. In 2021, we should commit to creating equitable and anti-racist newsrooms that serve the needs of all our audience and ourselves.
We should repent for words spoken and unspoken. I have heard colleagues of color described as “not sophisticated enough,” “not ready,” or “too angry,” and not responded. I’m sure I’m not alone. I’ve been careless with the language that I’ve used in ways that unintentionally hurt others. And have I done enough to recognize the editorial strength of my colleagues of color, to promote them and the values they uphold, and to accept how challenging it can be for them to come to work everyday? Sometimes, but not enough.
We should all be asking what we can do in the coming year to avoid our failures of the past. Here are a few suggestions.
Get comfortable with the word “racist.” Instead of being defensive about it, learn what it means. Speak openly about it with others.
Read Ibram Kendi’s How To Be An Antiracist, Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, Sarah M. Broom’s The Yellow House. There’s a great reading list in this article by S. Mitra Kalita. As she points out, there are no shortcuts to creating equitable and just newsrooms.
It’s also critical to understand just how dire the situation is for our colleagues of color and our industry. One of my most searing memories of 2020 was a presentation by John Hernandez at SRCCON in July who openly asked if it is time to burn legacy newsrooms to the ground and start over. His conclusion was not yet — for now.
On the Journalism of Color Slack, there are open conversations about how fed up these journalists are and how many are ready to leave our profession. Not a few dozen — hundreds of them.
What else can you do? Embrace being an ally. The burden of fixing our newsrooms should not fall on our colleagues of color. By this point, you should understand the emotional toll and the effort required by journalists of color to do the heavy lifting to “diversify” our profession. “I’m all about allies,” a Black woman leading one of the country’s most influential newsrooms said to me this summer. Believe it when you hear words like that. Do something meaningful and impactful to make things better.
Lastly, I have a critical message for every leader of a news organization: Do your job! Nothing will get better, no change will ever take place, unless you fully commit to leading by word and deed in the coming year. If our industry is going to have a future, it’s on you to lead the way.
It’s not enough to listen to your staff. It’s not enough to hire more journalists of color. It’s not enough to make diversity a “priority.” It should be the priority for the year and years ahead. This is an existential crisis for our industry, and it’s up to our senior executives to accept this challenge to make it right.
Make a commitment to Vision25, a collaboration between Maynard Institute, the Online Journalism Association, and OpenNews to commit to building racial equity in our newsrooms.
As they say at the end of the Jewish Day of Atonement: May you (our industry) be inscribed in the book of life in the year ahead. Amen to that.
John Davidow is former managing director for digital at Boston’s WBUR.
In the Jewish religion, we celebrate the new year in the fall. It’s a solemn time of holiness and hope, a time of repentance, reflection, and committing to righteous acts in the year ahead.
Before we turn the page on 2020, we white journalists should reflect and repent for each of our roles in perpetuating racial inequity in our newsrooms. In 2021, we should commit to creating equitable and anti-racist newsrooms that serve the needs of all our audience and ourselves.
We should repent for words spoken and unspoken. I have heard colleagues of color described as “not sophisticated enough,” “not ready,” or “too angry,” and not responded. I’m sure I’m not alone. I’ve been careless with the language that I’ve used in ways that unintentionally hurt others. And have I done enough to recognize the editorial strength of my colleagues of color, to promote them and the values they uphold, and to accept how challenging it can be for them to come to work everyday? Sometimes, but not enough.
We should all be asking what we can do in the coming year to avoid our failures of the past. Here are a few suggestions.
Get comfortable with the word “racist.” Instead of being defensive about it, learn what it means. Speak openly about it with others.
Read Ibram Kendi’s How To Be An Antiracist, Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, Sarah M. Broom’s The Yellow House. There’s a great reading list in this article by S. Mitra Kalita. As she points out, there are no shortcuts to creating equitable and just newsrooms.
It’s also critical to understand just how dire the situation is for our colleagues of color and our industry. One of my most searing memories of 2020 was a presentation by John Hernandez at SRCCON in July who openly asked if it is time to burn legacy newsrooms to the ground and start over. His conclusion was not yet — for now.
On the Journalism of Color Slack, there are open conversations about how fed up these journalists are and how many are ready to leave our profession. Not a few dozen — hundreds of them.
What else can you do? Embrace being an ally. The burden of fixing our newsrooms should not fall on our colleagues of color. By this point, you should understand the emotional toll and the effort required by journalists of color to do the heavy lifting to “diversify” our profession. “I’m all about allies,” a Black woman leading one of the country’s most influential newsrooms said to me this summer. Believe it when you hear words like that. Do something meaningful and impactful to make things better.
Lastly, I have a critical message for every leader of a news organization: Do your job! Nothing will get better, no change will ever take place, unless you fully commit to leading by word and deed in the coming year. If our industry is going to have a future, it’s on you to lead the way.
It’s not enough to listen to your staff. It’s not enough to hire more journalists of color. It’s not enough to make diversity a “priority.” It should be the priority for the year and years ahead. This is an existential crisis for our industry, and it’s up to our senior executives to accept this challenge to make it right.
Make a commitment to Vision25, a collaboration between Maynard Institute, the Online Journalism Association, and OpenNews to commit to building racial equity in our newsrooms.
As they say at the end of the Jewish Day of Atonement: May you (our industry) be inscribed in the book of life in the year ahead. Amen to that.
John Davidow is former managing director for digital at Boston’s WBUR.
John Saroff Covid sparks the growth of independent local news sites
Don Day Business first, journalism second
Pia Frey Building growth through tastemakers and their communities
Zizi Papacharissi The year we rebuild the infrastructure of truth
Sue Cross A global consensus around the kind of news we need to save
Hossein Derakhshan Mass personalization of truth
Jessica Clark News becomes plural
Laura E. Davis The focus turns to newsroom leaders for lasting change
Sonali Prasad Making disaster journalism that cuts through the noise
Andrew Donohue The rise of the democracy beat
Linda Solomon Wood Canada steps up for journalism
Heidi Tworek A year of news mocktails
Joshua Darr Legislatures will tackle the local news crisis
Mike Caulfield 2021’s misinformation will look a lot like 2020’s (and 2019’s, and…)
Cory Bergman The year after a thousand earthquakes
Bill Adair The future of fact-checking is all about structured data
Rick Berke Virtual events are here to stay
Charo Henríquez A new path to leadership
Benjamin Toff Beltway reporting gets normal again, for better and for worse
Kate Myers My son will join every Zoom call in our industry
Jean Friedman-Rudovsky and Cassie Haynes A shift from conversation to action
Matt Skibinski Misinformation won’t stop unless we stop it
Gabe Schneider Another year of empty promises on diversity
Gonzalo del Peon Collaborations expand from newsrooms to the business side
Jer Thorp Fewer pixels, more cardboard
Pablo Boczkowski Audiences have revolted. Will newsrooms adapt?
Beena Raghavendran Journalism gets fused with art
Annie Rudd Newsrooms grow less comfortable with the “view from above”
María Sánchez Díez Traffic will plummet — and it’ll be ok
Jennifer Brandel A sneak peak at power mapping, 2073’s top innovation
Eric Nuzum Podcasting dodged a bullet in 2020, but 2021 will be harder
C.W. Anderson Journalism changed under Trump — will it keep changing under Biden?
Marcus Mabry News orgs adapt to a post-Trump world (with Trump still in it)
Rishad Patel From direct-to-consumer to direct-to-believers
Sarah Marshall The year audiences need extra cheer
Ariane Bernard Going solo is still only a path for the few
L. Gordon Crovitz Common law will finally apply to the Internet
A.J. Bauer The year of MAGAcal thinking
Christoph Mergerson Black Americans will demand more from journalism
Samantha Ragland The year of journalists taking initiative
Julia Angwin Show your (computational) work
Sumi Aggarwal News literacy programs aren’t child’s play
Alyssa Zeisler Holistic medicine for journalism
Michael W. Wagner Fractured democracy, fractured journalism
Ariel Zirulnick Local newsrooms question their paywalls
Nikki Usher Don’t expect an antitrust dividend for the media
José Zamora Walking the talk on diversity
M. Scott Havens Traditional pay TV will embrace the disruption
Matt DeRienzo Citizen truth brigades steer us back toward reality
Astead W. Herndon The Trump-sized window of the media caring about race closes again
Tamar Charney Public radio has a midlife crisis
John Ketchum More journalists of color become newsroom founders
Joanne McNeil Newsrooms push back against Ivy League cronyism
Nicholas Jackson Blogging is back, but better
Tanya Cordrey Declining trust forces publishers to claim (or disclaim) values
Rodney Gibbs Zooming beyond talking heads
Janet Haven and Sam Hinds Is this an AI newsroom?
Errin Haines Let’s normalize women’s leadership
Aaron Foley Diversity gains haven’t shown up in local news
John Garrett A surprisingly good year
Ben Collins We need to learn how to talk to (and about) accidental conspiracists
Masuma Ahuja We’ll remember how interconnected our world is
Rachel Glickhouse Journalists will be kinder to each other — and to themselves
Brandy Zadrozny Misinformation fatigue sets in
Sarah Stonbely Videoconferencing brings more geographic diversity
Shaydanay Urbani and Nancy Watzman Local collaboration is key to slowing misinformation
Megan McCarthy Readers embrace a low-information diet
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen Stop pretending publishers are a united front
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Cherian George Enter the lamb warriors
Renée Kaplan Falling in love with your subscription
Nico Gendron Ask your readers to help build your products
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Richard J. Tofel Less on politics, more on how government works (or doesn’t)
Robert Hernandez Data and shame
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Jody Brannon People won’t renew
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Stefanie Murray and Anthony Advincula Expect to see more translations and non-English content
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Kawandeep Virdee Goodbye, doomscroll
Burt Herman Journalists build post-Facebook digital communities
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Jim Friedlich A newspaper renaissance reached by stopping the presses
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Victor Pickard The commercial era for local journalism is over
Patrick Butler Covid-19 reporting has prepared us for cross-border collaboration
Whitney Phillips Facts are an insufficient response to falsehoods
Jesse Holcomb Genre erosion in nonprofit journalism
John Davidow Reflect and repent
Tonya Mosley True equity means ownership
Marie Shanahan Journalism schools stop perpetuating the status quo
Ashton Lattimore Remote work helps level the playing field in an insular industry
Edward Roussel Tech companies get aggressive in local
Loretta Chao Open up the profession
Colleen Shalby The definition of good journalism shifts
Nabiha Syed Newsrooms quit their toxic relationships
Tauhid Chappell and Mike Rispoli Defund the crime beat
Marissa Evans Putting community trauma into context
Francesco Zaffarano The year we ask the audience what it needs
Mark S. Luckie Newsrooms and streaming services get cozy
Brian Moritz The year sports journalism changes for good
Kristen Muller Engaged journalism scales
Juleyka Lantigua-Williams The download, podcasting’s metric king, gets dethroned
David Chavern Local video finally gets momentum
Taylor Lorenz Journalists will learn influencing isn’t easy
Jacqué Palmer The rise of the plain-text email newsletter
Julia B. Chan and Kim Bui Millennials are ready to run things
Mariano Blejman It’s time to challenge autocompleted journalism
Rachel Schallom The rise of nonprofit journalism continues
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Alfred Hermida and Oscar Westlund The virus ups data journalism’s game
David Skok A pandemic-prompted wave of consolidation
Tim Carmody Spotify will make big waves in video
Kevin D. Grant Parachute journalism goes away for good
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Anthony Nadler Journalism struggles to find a new model of legitimacy
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Zainab Khan From understanding to feeling
Kerri Hoffman Protecting podcasting’s open ecosystem
Chase Davis The year we look beyond The Story
Doris Truong Indigenous issues get long-overdue mainstream coverage
Chicas Poderosas More voices mean better information
Bo Hee Kim Newsrooms create an intentional and collaborative culture
Jennifer Choi What have we done for you lately?
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