The Columbia Missourian’s Joy Mayer outlines strategies for reaching “more than the usual voices” and incorporating more diverse perspectives in your reporting. Among her ideas, Mayer suggests posing a central question to a lot of sources (such as people at an event) as a way to gather a variety of perspectives on one topic. Mayer […]
After South by Southwest organizers canceled two gaming and online harassment panels due to violent threats, BuzzFeed is threatening to withdraw its participation from SXSW. The canceled panels include several female speakers who had been targets of harassment from the “Gamergate” movement. In a letter sent to SXSW organizers, BuzzFeed’s publisher Dao Nguyen and editor […]
“Finding funding for women entrepreneurs and women-led websites has been notoriously difficult,” Damaris Colhoun writes. But, that hasn’t typically been the case for websites for women that are run by men: Bustle raised $6.5 million when it launched, and Refinery29 has raised $80 million to date. Meanwhile, women-led website The Toast has struggled to find […]
Making gender equality in the workplace a priority requires a change in culture, Sava Berhané writes. Berhané outlines three strategies for getting everyone on board, including making it evident how diversity and equal representation will benefit everyone. Berhané also recommends broadening the concept of effective leadership because traditional workplace cultures associate stereotypically masculine traits with […]
Politico reported last week that in a big leap for media diversity, at least 18 news outlets have female reporters covering Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. However, in its “class photo” with reporters from outlets including CNN, New York Times, BuzzFeed and Washington Post, nearly all of the female reporters appear to be white. The lack […]
Buffer’s Courtney Seiter shares mistakes the tech startup has made in diversity and how they’re taking steps to be inclusive. Among Seiter’s mistakes and lessons learned: Confusing cultural fit with cultural contribution in the hiring process can lead to “uniformity and irrelevancy” over time. Instead, hire for “an individual’s potential cultural contribution,” or what the […]
According to diversity numbers released by Jonah Peretti, BuzzFeed is now less white and more female this year than it was in 2014. Worldwide, more managers are female than male (52% female, 48% male), and there’s more females than males working at BuzzFeed overall as well. In 2014, BuzzFeed employees were 74.8% white, with that […]
Richard Prince asked eight editors at the convention of the American Society of News Editors and the Associated Press Managing Editors this weekend why the news industry is failing to meet its diversity goal. Billy Penn’s Jim Brady and Knoxville News Sentinel managing editor Tom Chester both echoed the idea that our recruiting is flawed: […]
Since Code Switch was launched in 2013 and today, digital editor Tasneem Raja says a lot has changed: Mainstream media has been forced to cover and explore race in America, challenging Code Switch to bring something new to the conversation. On how Code Switch makes that work, Raja says: “Our job is to really talk […]
While there’s a representation problem in many local newsrooms, Josh Stearns writes that creating more diverse journalism requires changing our institutions, culture and storytelling practices. Research from API shows African Americans and Hispanics are dissatisfied with the accessibility of news about communities, as well as the portrayal of their communities, which Stearns says should lead […]