When George Floyd was murdered by a police officer in May 2020, a reckoning began in journalism.
After all, the initial press release issued by police characterized the murder as “a medical incident.”
Newsroom leaders were forced to grapple with the problematic relationship between journalists and the police, and the industry’s complicity in perpetuating anti-Black racism.
But three years later, many racialized reporters believe the “reckoning” was little more than lip service.
Appearing at the 2023 South by Southwest (SXSW) conference in Austin, Tx., three journalists who are fighting to revolutionize the industry spoke about how to build antiracist newsrooms.
Racialized reporters stuck in cycle of humanizing their community
Among the panelists was Trymaine Lee, a Pulitzer Prize and Emmy Award-winning journalist, correspondent for MSNBC, and host of the “Into America” podcast. Lee also served as a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine’s “1619 Project.”
Lee referred to Ibram X Kendi’s book How To Be An Antiracist, explaining it’s about actively working to dismantle racism rather than working in support of white supremacy, an act that can be done consciously and subconsciously.
That work, Lee says, manifests itself in newsrooms through “intentionally dismantling the mechanics of white supremacy and the many ways in which they show up.”
“I think this notion that some people might be too close to the community, too close to the story,” Lee said. “When in reality, that is our power, is that we are multilingual in so many ways, culturally and socially.”
For young racialized reporters, he added, that means being in “a cycle of having to continue to humanize people” who are underserved by the journalism industry.
It’s about critiquing these systems while “always reminding people that these cogs are working in concert together,” he said.
“I think you have to do that with intentionality and permanence and being mission-driven,” Lee said, “understanding that these systems are actually working to oppress people.”
Making news that serves your audience
S. Mitra Kalita has found success in a radical publication that focuses more on what audiences need rather than dictating the stories we tell from within the newsroom.
Kalita, a two-time author and veteran journalist, recently launched Epicenter-NYC, a newsletter to help inform New Yorkers about the COVID-19 pandemic. She’s also the co-founder and CEO of URL Media, a decentralized, multi-platform network of Black and Brown media organizations.
Kalita believes that while newsrooms have strived to be antiracist in the wake of the uprising that followed Floyd’s murder, news directors “are not examining their own missions and role in perpetuating racism.”
While Kalita had a successful career in mainstream organizations like CNN, it was not until she launched Epicenter-NYC that she felt as though she could weave antiracist practices into her place of work.
To Kalita, it all comes down to the mission of the organization. Using Facebook’s early days of ranking hot women on campus as an example, she explained why “mission matters.”
“Now if you poke at it, the mission of that company has changed, and many of us assigned a new mission to it in terms of supporting democracy and uplifting voices and surfacing news and information,” Kalita said. “But the fundamentals of that company were to rank hot women, and I think that’s really hard to shake off.”
How can journalists continue to be willing to expose other racist systems, Kalita asks, without doing the essential work of looking inward?
Rethinking audience engagement in the newsroom
Amanda Zamora the co-founder and publisher of The 19th News, is also working to revolutionize the way newsrooms tell stories.
Zamora harnessed two decades of journalistic experience to create the non-profit, independent news platform based in Austin.
Zamora noted that newsrooms need to have a greater emphasis on building relationships with audiences. Rather than measuring engagement by clicks, she says reporters would see their time better spent rethinking a relationship with audiences “that is fundamentally two-way and mutually beneficial.”
It’s that lack of focus on how audiences can inform journalists, instead of just being passive consumers, that Zamora believes will help rebuild trust in the industry.
“Newsrooms have opted into this progressivism by saying, ‘Well, we’re covering racism systems, we’re covering all of these issues,’ without ever actually examining how they’re perpetuating within the industry,” she said.
On the subject of objectivity and impartiality, Zamora noted that for racialized reporters, there is no room for their lived experience. Focusing on objectivity means casting aside first-hand knowledge of the communities that inform the stories we tell.
While newsrooms promote diversity and inclusion within their organizations, Zamora pointed out that it’s all about optics for newsroom leaders.
“If you don’t have a culture to support these diverse ranks, you’re missing the point,” she said.
Building an antiracist newsroom, Zamora added, is about examining the systems relied on to tell a story.
“Who gets to decide what the story is? Who gets to decide what the angle is? Are you listening to all of those people that you hired when they’re telling you that this is the story?” she asked.
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Nick Seebruch, editor
