The journalism industry has been talking about the lack of diversity in newsrooms for years and making only some progress. Now, the need to rebuild public trust could provide a new incentive to actually diversify newsroom staffs.
In its most recent newsroom survey, the American Society of News Editors (ASNE) found that women make up a third of newsroom employees overall and about 16 percent are racial minorities.
“Although the survey signals improvement, it shows that more ambitious efforts need to be made to improve diversity, help rebuild trust, and ensure that the news and information needs of underserved communities are being met,” said Jennifer Preston, vice president for journalism at the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
Lack of trust
The lack of diversity in newsrooms influences coverage and may be part of the reason communities of color tend not to trust the news media. African Americans and Hispanics, in particular, often say their communities are not covered accurately by the news media. A Media Insight Institute study in 2014 found almost 40 percent of African Americans and a quarter of Hispanics said coverage was only slightly or not at all accurate. 
Not surprisingly, that assessment also impacts trust. A recent survey of students at historically black colleges and universities compared their views to those of black students at other schools. At HBCU’s, just 28 percent had a great deal or fair amount of trust in the press, compared to 39 percent at other schools.
One-sided coverage led Tiffany Walden to start her own news site. She’s the co-founder and editor-in-chief of the digital media website The Triibe whose goal is to allow black millennials to tell their own stories and provide balanced reporting on the black community in Chicago.
Walden says there’s a disconnect between communities of color and the news media. Her biggest complaint is that journalists aren’t invested in the communities they are reporting on. ,
“Don’t only come when Trump tweets,” Walden said. She advises journalists to stay and be present to gain the trust of the community.
Walden believes it’s important that people of color tell the stories of their community. She said news coverage has been poor since the Reconstruction era. With current coverage mostly focused on violence and negative events, and with such a long history of mistreatment and misrepresentation by the media, as Walden sees it, how are people of color going to trust white media?
Hiring
If newsrooms want to tell diverse stories and regain the public’s trust, they need to hire and retain diverse journalists. “When you have a diverse staff, and people are comfortable around these topics, you get a better outcome,” said Kevin Riley, editor of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, in a Nieman Reports article.
Hiring journalists with diverse backgrounds requires newsrooms to cast a wide net when hiring and engage in outreach, seeking out diverse job candidates. Newsrooms also need to actively help aspiring journalists overcome barriers of entry into the industry.
According to a Columbia Journalism Review report, it’s easy to hire young journalists with better access to higher education, the means to take on unpaid internships, and far-reaching social networks. And those journalists are typically white.
The Missoulian newspaper, which serves a mostly white area in Montana, has taken steps to make it easier for aspiring journalists belonging to underserved communities to enter the news industry. Kathy Best, Missoulian editor-in-chief, said diversity needs to be intentional and relationships need to be created early. If you aren’t getting diverse job candidates, Best said, newsrooms have to change how they recruit. “You can’t wait for the perfect candidate to walk in the door.”
The Missoulian pays its interns, helping to remove a financial barrier. When Best noticed a lack of Native American journalists in a state with a relatively large Native American population, she asked parent company Lee Enterprises to offer a scholarship for Native American journalism students at the University of Montana.
When Best was editor of the Seattle Times, the paper would reach out to high school girls and minority students that showed talent and interest in journalism, letting them know the Times recognized their hard work. Hopefully, as a result, these students would return to the Times for internships or job openings, said Best, bringing diversity to the newsroom.
When hiring in a male-dominated newsroom, Best said, those in charge of hiring unconsciously look for candidates who look like them. Best said that being a woman may have helped her cast a wider net when hiring, which led to an increase in the number of women at the Missoulian. Best hired the first woman to ever cover University of Montana football for the Missoulian.
According to the ASNE diversity survey, 47 percent of newsroom employees at the Missoulian are female compared to just 28 percent in 2001. But the survey reports the Missoulian still has no employees of color in a city which is 89 percent white, according to census data.
Finding candidates of color requires intentionality. Journalist Lam Thuy Vo advises editors to put themselves out there when recruting; attend the Asian American Journalists Association conference or go to a local National Association of Black Journalists event. As Joe Grimm pointed out, these groups are not “members only.” Many minority journalism groups have job boards where editors can place listings.
Retention
After a newsroom has hired a diverse staff, it now it must focus on retaining those people. “Minority journalists are more likely to leave journalism than their white counterparts,” Alex Williams wrote in the Columbia Journalism Review. According to a report by ASNE, the retention rate in 2015 for white journalists was 86 percent, while it was 78 percent for journalists of color. Journalists have to feel valued in order to stay at a newsroom.
In order to retain diverse journalists they must be given a seat at the table, feel that they will be heard if they speak up, but not tokenized.
Dan O’Donnell, news director at KMBC-TV in Kansas City, said it’s up to newsroom leaders to ensure that everyone feels comfortable speaking up. This is especially important for lesbian and gay journalists. “You have to make the decision to share your perspective when it’s not easily noticeable,” O’Donnell said.
Oftentimes lesbian and gay journalists have knowledge about certain issues, such as same-sex marriage policies, that goes beyond that of the general population. If a newsroom wishes to benefit from that specialized knowledge, it is vital that people feel comfortable saying something that could raise questions about their sexuality, if that’s not something they have been open about.
But O’Donnell says it’s equally important that members of minority communities are not expected to speak for their communities or have an opinion that is different from the majority. No one should be treated as a token, he said. For example, if the newsroom is doing a story on Muslim-Americans it would be inappropriate to call on the Muslim-American member of the newsroom for his or her opinion, O’Donnell said. Instead, he believes it’s important to create an atmosphere where people feel comfortable to speak up to add a perspective they felt was missing in the story.
Diversity can’t just be a buzzword if the news media wants to regain public trust, said The Triibe’s Walden. That means covering communities of color fairly, and not just when things go wrong. A more diverse newsroom is one key to making that happen.
“News isn’t a competition, these are real lives. We need to be getting the story right,” she said.
Madeline Broom is studying journalism, environmental studies and climate change at the University of Montana. She currently works for the student newspaper, Montana Kaimin, covering student government. She is interested in informing students about the inner workings of campus administration and shining a light on environmental issues. Madeline grew up in Minnesota where she spent her weekends with her family sailing on one of Minnesota’s 10,000 lakes or skiing on one of many large hills.
