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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
New diversity style guide helps journalists write with authority and accuracy about a complex, multicultural world
A companion to the online resource of the same name, The Diversity Style Guide raises the consciousness of journalists who strive to be accurate. Based on studies, news reports and style guides, as well as interviews with more than 50 journalists and experts, it offers the best, most up-to-date advice on writing about underrepresented and often misrepresented groups. Addressing such thorny questions as whether the words Black and White should be capitalized when referring to race and which pronouns to use for people who don't identify as male or female, the book helps readers navigate the minefield of names, terms, labels and colloquialisms that come with living in a diverse society.
The Diversity Style Guide comes in two parts. Part One offers enlightening chapters on Why is Diversity So Important; Implicit Bias; Black Americans; Native People; Hispanics and Latinos; Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders; Arab Americans and Muslim Americans; Immigrants and Immigration; Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation; People with Disabilities; Gender Equality in the News Media; Mental Illness, Substance Abuse and Suicide; and Diversity and Inclusion in a Changing Industry. Part Two includes Diversity and Inclusion Activities and an A-Z Guide with more than 500 terms.
This guide:
- Helps journalists, journalism students, and other media writers better understand the context behind hot-button words so they can report with confidence and sensitivity
- Explores the subtle and not-so-subtle ways that certain words can alienate a source or infuriate a reader
- Provides writers with an understanding that diversity in journalism is about accuracy and truth, not "political correctness."
- Brings together guidance from more than 20 organizations and style guides into a single handy reference book
The Diversity Style Guide is first and foremost a guide for journalists, but it is also an important resource for journalism and writing instructors, as well as other media professionals. In addition, it will appeal to those in other fields looking to make informed choices in their word usage and their personal interactions.
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Table of Contents
Cover
Introduction
A Note about Capitalization
Part I: Covering a Diverse Society
1 Why is Diversity So Important?
Diversity and Journalism
Fault lines
Where Are the Journalists of Color?
How Does a Diverse Newsroom Affect Coverage?
Getting Beyond The Usual Sources
Diversity Within Diverse Groups
Discussion Questions/Activities
Additional Readings
Multimedia
Resources
2 Implicit Bias – Addressing the Bias Within Us
The Danger of the Crisis Narrative
Changing the Picture
What is Implicit Bias?
How Implicit Bias Works
Missed Stories and Opportunities
Implicit Bias in Newsroom Structures
Solutions
Discussion Questions/Activities
Additional Readings
Resources
3 Black Americans
African Americans in the Media Today
Population Overview
From Colored to Negro to Black to African American – and Back to Black
The Politics of Punctuation – and Grammar
Identification of Race
The Black Media
How African Americans are Portrayed in the News Media
Media Bias in the Coverage of Protests
Covering Black Communities
Discussion Questions/Activities
Additional Readings
Multimedia
Resources
Black News Outlets
4 Native People
Terminology
Alaska Natives
Population Overview
Native Cultures and Traditions
Reservations and Urban Communities
Nations are Governments
Casinos
Who is Native – The Problem with Blood Quantum
Powwows and Traditional Celebrations
Alcohol and Native Communities
Problematic Terms
What’s Wrong with the Redskins?
Cultural Appropriation
National Native American Heritage Month
Other Tips For Coverage
Timeline: Native People in the News Media
Discussion Questions/Activities
Additional Readings
Resources
5 Hispanics and Latinos
Hispanic or Latino?
What About Race?
The Largest Minority Group – and Growing
Latinos in the News Industry
Media Coverage of Latinos
Common Stereotypes
Covering Immigration
The Latino Media
National Hispanic Heritage Month and Cinco de Mayo
Improving Coverage
Timeline: Latinos and Hispanics in the News Media
Discussion Questions/Activities
Additional Readings
Multimedia
Resources
Latino and Hispanic News Outlets
6 Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders
A Note About Hyphens
Population Overview
Questioning the Asian American Label
The Myth of the “Model Minority”
Avoiding Stereotypes
Watch Out for “Exotic”
Helping to Educate Readers About Asian‐American Culture
Timeline: Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the News Media
Discussion Questions/Activities
Additional Readings
Multimedia
Resources
Asian American News Outlets
7 Arab Americans and Muslim Americans
Understanding Arab Americans and Muslim Americans
The Religion Trap
Population Overview: Muslim Americans
Population Overview: Arab Americans
The Terrorism Frame
Arab Americans and Muslim Americans Under Fire
Covering Arab‐American Communities
International News is Local
Mistakes We Make
The Palestine Story
Gatekeepers
Think Globally, Act Locally
Discussion Questions/Activities
Additional Readings
Multimedia
Resources
Arab‐American News Outlets
8 Covering Immigrants and Immigration
Terminology
Population Overview
Refugees and Asylum Seekers
Covering Immigrant Communities
Protecting the Identity of Undocumented Immigrants
Discussion Questions/Activities
Additional Readings
Resources
9 Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation
Terminology
Population Overview
A Changing Vocabulary
Marriage and Family
Transgender People
Population Overview
Intersex
The Gender Spectrum
Discussion Questions/Activities
Additional Readings
Multimedia
Resources
LGBTQ News Outlets
10 People with Disabilities
Population Overview
Avoid the Superhero Story
The Language of Disability
Other Tips from the NCDJ
Discussion Questions/Activities
Additional Readings
Multimedia
Resources
11 Gender Equality in the News Media
Women in the Newsroom
Coverage of Women in Politics
Coverage of Women in Sports
Sexual Harassment in the Workplace
Discussion Questions/Activities
Additional Readings
Resources
12 Mental Illness, Substance Abuse and Suicide
Reporting on Mental Illness
Mental Illness and Violence
Mistakes we Make
Reporting on Celebrities
Improving Coverage of Mental Health
Covering Suicide
Covering Substance Abuse and Addiction
Discussion Questions/Activities
Additional Readings
Multimedia
Resources
13 Diversity and Inclusion in a Changing Industry
PRI’s Ambitious Inclusiveness Initiative
How
The New York Times
Tackled Race
NPR Seeks Diverse Voices
Making Diversity a Priority in Hiring
Creating an Inclusive Newsroom
“How Newsrooms Can Stop Being So White”
Finding Diverse Sources
Taking a Stand for Diversity
Discussion Questions/Activities
Additional Readings
Diversity‐Oriented Programs and News Outlets
Part II: The Journalist's Diversity Toolbox
Diversity and Inclusion Activities
Welcome/Warm‐Up Activities
Discussion Questions
Discussion Questions
Diversity Bingo
Discussion Questions
Discussion Questions
News/Reporting Activities
Discussion Questions
Discussion Questions
Discussion Questions
Discussion Questions
Identity Activities
Materials:
Discussion Questions
Discussion Questions
Discussion Questions
Language Activities
Creating Gender‐Free Language
Resources
Diversity Calendar
A–Z Diversity Style Guide
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
Y
Z
Index
End User License Agreement
List of Illustrations
Chapter 01
Figure 1.1
“Under Our Skin”
A team from
The Seattle Times
spent nearly six months producing “Under Our Skin,” a video project in which 18 community members talked candidly about race.
Figure 1.2 When comparing data from the 2016 newsroom diversity survey by the American Society of News Editors with U.S. Census data from the previous year it’s clear ethnic and racial minorities were underrepresented and White people were overrepresented in U.S. newsrooms. This is a continuing trend that has been documented by ASNE since 1978.
Figure 1.3 In annual surveys by the Radio Television Digital News Association, racial and ethnic minorities working in radio and television news have consistently been underrepresented.
Chapter 03
Figure 3.1 African Americans are significantly underrepresented in all segments of the news industry, except TV, according to a 2016 survey by the American Society of News Editors and a 2017 survey by the Radio Television Digital News Association.
Figure 3.2 After
The Commercial Appeal
in Memphis ran the headline “Gunman targeted whites” across the front page, demonstrators gathered outside the newspaper’s office to express their anger at the newspaper’s insensitivity. After meeting with protesters, Editor Louis Graham apologized in a front‐page editorial titled “We got it wrong.”
Chapter 04
Figure 4.1 Native Americans are underrepresented in all segments of the news industry, according to a 2016 survey by the American Society of News Editors and a 2017 survey by the Radio Television Digital News Association.
Chapter 05
Figure 5.1 Nearly two‐thirds of Latinos trace their lineage to Mexico. These estimates represent the number of people who reported a specific Latin American or Spanish group on the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey in 2015.
Figure 5.2 Latinos are significantly underrepresented in all segments of the news industry, according to a 2016 survey by the American Society of News Editors and a 2017 survey by the Radio Television Digital News Association.
Chapter 06
Figure 6.1
#thisis2016 Asian Americans respond
After Michael Luo, then deputy metro editor of
The New York Times
, wrote an open letter to a woman who told him to “go back to China,” the newspaper solicited stories from Asian Americans about their own racist moments and put them together in a video. Luo introduces the video, which was posted on the newspaper’s website on Oct. 13, 2016.
Figure 6.2 In the early 2000s, the number of newly arrived Hispanic immigrants greatly outnumbered new Asian immigrants. But with the Great Recession of 2008–2010, Latin American immigration declined sharply, especially from Mexico. Meanwhile, Asian immigration to the U.S. continued to grow.
Figure 6.3 Most Asian Americans trace their roots to one or more of 21 Asian countries. These estimates represent the number of people who reported a specific Asian group alone on the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey in 2015, as well as people who reported that Asian group in combination with one or more other Asian groups or another race(s).
Figure 6.4 Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are underrepresented in the news industry, particularly in leadership roles, according to a 2016 survey by the American Society of News Editors and a 2017 survey by the Radio Television Digital News Association.
Chapter 07
Figure 7.1
The Arab World
The Arab World consists of 22 countries in the Middle East and North Africa that share the Arabic language. Though located in the same general region, Iran and Turkey are not Arab countries; their primary languages are Farsi and Turkish respectively.
Figure 7.2 Muslims are expected to become the second largest religious group in the United States by 2040, according projections from the Pew Research Center. Currently Jews are the second largest religious group in the country, not including the unaffiliated.
Chapter 08
Figure 8.1 The U.S. foreign‐born population reached a record 43.2 million in 2015. Since 1965, when U.S. immigration laws changed, the number of immigrants living in the U.S. has more than quadrupled.
Figure 8.2 In 2015, there were a record 43.2 million immigrants living in the United States, making up 13.4 percent of the nation’s population, according to the Pew Research Center. This represents a fourfold increase since 1960, when just 9.7 million immigrants lived in the United States, accounting for just 5.4 percent of the total U.S. population.
Figure 8.3 Immigration patterns in the United States have shifted dramatically since the passage of the 1965 Immigration and Naturalization Act. In 1960, 84 percent of immigrants living in the United States were born in Europe or Canada, while only 6 percent came from Mexico, 3.8 percent from South and East Asia, 3.5 percent from the rest of Latin America and 2.7 percent from other areas, according to the Pew Research Center, which analyzed data from the U.S. Census Bureau. By 2015, only 13.5 percent of immigrants came from Europe and Canada while 26.8 percent came from Mexico. Other Latin Americans made up 24.2 percent of all immigrants while Asian immigrants made up 26.9 percent of the total. The other 8.6 percent of immigrants were born in other regions.
Figure 8.4 The Pew Research Center estimated in 2017 that about 24.5 percent of immigrants, or about one in four, are unauthorized.
Chapter 11
Figure 11.1 Though they make up half the population, women are underrepresented in all segments of the news industry, especially in leadership roles, according to a 2016 survey by the American Society of News Editors and a 2017 survey by the Radio Television Digital News Association.
Guide
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The Diversity Style Guide
Rachele Kanigel
This edition first published 2019© 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by law. Advice on how to obtain permission to reuse material from this title is available at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.
The right of Rachele Kanigel to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with law.
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Library of Congress Cataloging‐in‐Publication Data
Names: Kanigel, Rachele, author.Title: The diversity style guide / Rachele Kanigel.Description: 1st edition. | San Francisco : Wiley‐Blackwell, [2018] | Includes bibliographical references and index. |Identifiers: LCCN 2018016656 (print) | LCCN 2018024970 (ebook) | ISBN 9781119055242 (Adobe PDF) | ISBN 9781119054917 (ePub) | ISBN 9781119055150 (hardback) | ISBN 9781119055075 (paperback)Subjects: LCSH: Journalism–Style manuals. | Journalism–Social aspects. | Journalism–Language. | Minorities–Press coverage. | BISAC: LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Journalism.Classification: LCC PN4783 (ebook) | LCC PN4783 .K34 2018 (print) | DDC 808.06/607–dc23LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018016656
Cover Image: © alexxx1981/iStockphoto; © Iuliia_Syrotina_28/iStockphoto; © Jobalou/iStockphoto; © Paperkites/iStockphotoCover Design: Wiley
To my colleagues and students at San Francisco State University, who teach me about diversity every day.
Acknowledgments
In the nearly 20 years I’ve taught at San Francisco State University, I’ve worked with an astoundingly diverse and inspiring mix of people. My students have come from nearly every continent (except Antarctica), socioeconomic group, religion, race, ethnic group and political persuasion. I’ve taught people from across the gender/sexuality spectrum. Students have shared their experiences with mental illness and drug addiction, and immigrants have revealed intimate details about their journeys to the United States and their efforts to stay in this country.
Each of these people has shaped me in some way, opening my eyes to new perspectives and my heart to different realities. I feel profoundly blessed to have known them all.
Many of the concepts and terms in this book have come from analyzing journalism with this diverse group of people. My students and colleagues have pointed out stereotypical depictions in the news that I hadn’t recognized and taught me terms I wasn’t familiar with.
The seed for this book was planted more than 20 years ago when the Center for Integration and Improvement of Journalism at San Francisco State University issued the original Diversity Style Guide, a collection of terms from half a dozen style guides that existed at the time. The guide was never published – it was just available in PDF form – and about five years ago I got the idea to update and expand it into a searchable website (https://www.diversitystyleguide.com/) and this book.
No one person can determine the correct usage of a word; this guide takes wisdom and advice from leaders in the field who have researched and considered the cultural, political, and linguistic meanings of words. Most of the glossary terms were taken, with permission, from these organizations and their style or media reference guides and I gratefully acknowledge them:
Asian American Journalists Association and its
Handbook to Covering Asian America
Densho Encyclopedia
Gender Spectrum
GLAAD and the
GLAAD Media Reference Guide, 10th Edition
Canadian Journalism Forum on Violence and Trauma and its guide,
Mindset: Reporting on Mental Health
Duncan McCue and his
Reporting in Indigenous Communities
guide
Michigan State University School of Journalism cultural competence series:
–
100 Questions & Answers About African Americans
–
100 Questions & Answers About Americans
–
100 Questions & Answers About Arab Americans
–
100 Questions & Answers About East Asian Cultures
–
100 Questions & Answers About Indian Americans
–
100 Questions & Answers About Hispanics & Latinos
–
100 Questions & Answers About Muslim Americans
–
100 Questions, 500 Nations
(co‐sponsored by the Native American Journalists Association)
National Association of Black Journalists and the
NABJ Style Guide
National Association of Hispanic Journalists
National Center on Disability and Journalism and its
Disability Language Style Guide
National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association and the
NLGJA Stylebook Supplement on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Terminology
Media Takes: On Aging, a publication of the International Longevity Center USA at the Robert N. Butler Columbia Aging Center and Aging Services of California
National Institute on Drug Abuse Media Guide
Native American Journalists Association and its reporting guides and advisories
Neutrois.com
Religion Newswriters Association and its
Religion Stylebook
TEAM Up (Tools for Entertainment and Media), a project of the Entertainment Industries Council, and the
TEAM Up Reporting on Mental Health Style Guide
Washington State Coalition for Mental Health Reporting and its Mental Health Reporting website.
I’m deeply grateful to the wise journalists and journalism educators who contributed chapters to this book – Venise Wagner and Sally Lehrman, Sandra Combs, Cristina Azocar, Joe Grimm and Osama Siblani, and Kristin Gilger. Joe also helped me think through some of the challenges of drawing guidance from sometimes conflicting sources and I appreciate our conversations and email correspondence over the past few years. I’d also like to thank some of the early readers – Donna Tam, Nashelly Chavez and Laura Castañeda.
Many journalists, journalism educators, researchers and media professionals took time to talk with me. I can’t list them all here, but I’d particularly like to thank Nushin Arbabzadah, Gustavo Arellano, Tyrone Beason, Darren Brown, Mary Chao, Aly Colón, Suki Dardarian, Gary Gates, Linda Jue, Marc Lacey, Karen Magnuson, Faiza Mahamud, Adam Maksl, Frances Negron‐Muntaner, Brenda Payton, Ray Suarez, Hollis Towns and Keith Woods. And I feel so lucky that Dori Maynard took time for an interview shortly before she died.
A huge thanks to my student research assistants – Danielle Parenteau‐Decker, Cecilia Abate, Arash Malekzadeh and Chantel Carnes – and to two talented graphic artists, Eva Rodriguez, who created the infographics, and Harlan Frost, who designed the logo and icons for the website. I’m grateful for grants from the Sigma Delta Chi Foundation and the San Francisco State University College of Liberal and Creative Arts that provided funding for me to hire them and for Kevin Cox, who helped administer the grants.
I’m also thankful for the team at Wiley – Elizabeth Swayze for believing in the project and to Haze Humbert, Vimali Joseph, and Janani Govindankutty for ushering it through the editing and production process.
Finally, I want to recognize the countless journalists who strive to report accurately and fairly about our diverse society. Throughout the process of researching and writing this book, I have looked to them for inspiration and insight.
Rachele KanigelJanuary 2018
Notes on Contributors
Dr. Cristina Azocar is the chair of the Journalism Department and an associate professor of journalism at San Francisco State University. Prior to becoming chair she directed the Center for Integration and Improvement of Journalism. Azocar is an editor of American Indian Issues for the Media Diversity Forum and is a past president of the Native American Journalists Association. She is a member of the Upper Mattaponi Tribe of the Powhatan Nation.
Sandra L. Combs is an associate professor at Arkansas State University, Jonesboro, where she teaches a class on Race, Gender & Media and a variety of journalism and media writing classes. She also is adviser for the A‐State student newspaper, The Herald. Before moving to Arkansas, she taught journalism classes at Wayne State University (Detroit) and Michigan State University (East Lansing). Prior to teaching, she worked for about 22 years as a full‐time journalist with The Fort Myers News‐Press (Florida), The Oakland Press (Pontiac, Michigan), and The Detroit News. Now she also works as a freelance journalist and communications specialist.
Kristin Gilger is director of the National Center on Disability and Journalism at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. She is also associate dean in charge of professional programs for the Cronkite School and serves as executive director of the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism.
Joe Grimm is visiting editor in residence at the Michigan State University School of Journalism. He was an editor at the Detroit Free Press for more than 25 years and, in the 1990s, published 100 Questions and Answers About Arab Americans. That led to a series of related cultural competence guides cited elsewhere in this book.
Rachele Kanigel is a professor of journalism at San Francisco State University, where she teaches writing, reporting, editing and media entrepreneurship courses and advises the student newspaper, Golden Gate Xpress. She was a daily newspaper reporter for 15 years and has freelanced for TIME, U.S. News and World Report, San Francisco Magazine, MediaShift, Health and other publications. She has led study‐abroad programs in Italy, France and Israel with the Institute for Education in International Media and was named a Fulbright Specialist. She is the author of The Student Newspaper Survival Guide.
Sally Lehrman is the director of journalism ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University. She has long been involved in evangelizing journalism values and ethics as a local and national leader in the Society of Professional Journalists and the SDX Foundation, among other activities. She is the author of News in a New America, an analysis of the diversity of American news coverage and newsrooms, published in 2006 by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and co‐author (with Venise Wagner) of Reporting Inequality: Tools and Methods for Covering Race and Ethnicity, a book that provides journalists and journalism students with tools and reporting strategies to improve coverage of structural inequities that lead to racial disparities.
Osama Siblani is founder and publisher of The Arab American News in Dearborn, Michigan. Founded in 1984, it is the oldest continually published English/Arabic newspaper in the United States. Siblani came to the United States in 1975 during Lebanon’s civil war and became an engineer. He started the newspaper to create a news source and a voice for the Arab‐American community.
Venise Wagner is a professor of journalism at San Francisco State University. She was a reporter for several California dailies, including the Imperial Valley Press, The Modesto Bee, The Orange County Register, the San Francisco Examiner and the San Francisco Chronicle, covering border issues, religion and ethics, schools and education, urban issues, and issues in the Bay Area’s various Black communities. She is also co‐author (with Sally Lehrman) of Reporting Inequality: Tools and Methods for Covering Race and Ethnicity, a book that provides journalists and journalism students with tools and reporting strategies to improve coverage of structural inequities that lead to racial disparities.
Introduction
In the four years I’ve spent researching and writing this book, the reactions to my project have fallen into two general categories: “That sounds really interesting; we need a guide like that” and, “Oh, so you’re writing a book about how to be politically correct.”
It was easy to feel encouraged by the first response, but it’s actually the second one that has spurred me on. Friends, family members and colleagues would laugh or wink when saying “politically correct,” knowing the term itself has become pejorative and may imply an excessive adherence to liberal dogma. But their snide use of the phrase gave me a mission: to educate people about the potency of language, the way it can empower people and the way it can disenfranchise them.
Like it or not, language is political, particularly when we talk about sensitive issues like race, gender, sexuality and disability. Words are laden with connotations, double meanings, innuendo – baggage we may not completely understand unless we’ve lived those words. You’ll never really know what it feels like to hear and internalize the words colored, Negro, African American, Afro‐American, Black (not to mention the dreaded n‐word) unless you are Black and you have been called those things.
All media professionals have to face decisions about the language they use whenever they set out to write about the human experience. Is it better to call the son of a Guatemalan immigrant Hispanic or Latino? Should you refer to a member of the Passamaquoddy tribe in Maine as an American Indian or a Native American, an Indigenous American or a Native person – or avoid racial descriptors altogether and just name her tribal affiliation? Is a man in his 80s elderly, a senior citizen or just a senior?
It may seem like these are questions simply of what’s in vogue, but often they’re a matter of accuracy. Some may say media outlets are pandering if they change their style guidelines in response to complaints from activists. But often media professionals struggle to keep up with the evolution of language so that they can report truthfully, thoroughly and accurately about diverse groups of people.
When discussing this with people, I sometimes offer the case of my older brother. He generally goes by Robert or Rob. My father used to call him Roberto from time to time and his wife affectionately calls him Robbie. He’ll answer to any of those names. But refer to him as Bob and he’ll immediately correct you. Say “Bob” again, and he’ll bristle. To call him Bob is simply wrong. It’s not his name. And that’s sometimes the way it is with terms related to diversity.
As the writer and editor of this text, I don’t pretend to have all the answers. But the contributors and I have put together a guide that we hope will raise the consciousness of journalists who strive to be accurate. In researching this book, we’ve read studies, news reports and style guides and interviewed dozens of journalists and experts with the aim of offering the best, most up‐to‐date advice on writing about underrepresented and often misrepresented groups.
It’s not easy to navigate these issues. Sometimes just having a simple conversation can feel like walking through a minefield. And even when we’re armed with the “right” language, we can find ourselves using terms that offend. For years, I’ve been in circles where people skirted the term “minorities,” instead using “people of color.” The phrase, once a little awkward for me, now slips off my tongue easily. But when I interviewed Marc Lacey, national editor of The New York Times, he confided he doesn’t like that term.
“‘People of color’ is too close, in my mind, to ‘colored people,’ just a small grammatical shift away from a term tainted by the ugliness of segregation,” Lacey said in a Times piece entitled “What Racial Terms Make You Cringe?” “I know it’s now commonplace, and that it’s used with the noblest of intent. But White is a color too so everyone is technically of color, right?”
This guide attempts to help journalists, journalism students and other media writers prepare for those sometimes awkward conversations. We’ll explore the subtle and not‐so‐subtle ways that words can alienate a source or infuriate a reader, how a thoughtless pun in a headline can elicit hundreds of angry letters or ignite a firestorm on social media. It also aims to give writers an understanding that diversity in journalism is first and foremost about accuracy, about representing an individual or a community or an issue fully and completely, about not leaving people out and about telling the whole truth.
In the 21st century, some have said we live in a post‐racial world, a society where America can elect a Black president, a place where race doesn’t matter. But the racial tensions that exploded in 2014 and continued in subsequent years with a series of documented killings of young Black and Brown men by police, have once again shone a light on issues related to race and inequality. Newsrooms that had played down racial divisions in their communities were forced to confront them as angry protests erupted in the streets of Ferguson, Missouri; Chicago; New York City; Washington, D.C.; Baltimore; Seattle; Minneapolis; and other cities. Editors assigned reporters to go out into their communities to delve into tensions that had been simmering just below the surface for decades. The divisive presidential election of 2016 and the national discord that ensued after the election of Donald Trump forced journalists to delve into identity, immigration, multiculturalism and other “diversity” issues even more as culture wars broke out in the streets and on college campuses around the nation.
Diversity is not just about race. As Robert C. Maynard, the first Black publisher of a major metropolitan newspaper, noted, class, geography, age and gender also create diversity – and divisions. Today, some people add sexuality, physical ability/disability and religion to this list of “fault lines” through which we all see the world.
It’s virtually impossible to be a media professional today and not have opportunities to explore diversity on a daily basis. Whether you’re a TV reporter in a top‐10 market, a social media editor for a website or a general assignment reporter for a small‐town daily newspaper, you’re bound to encounter people whose experience of the world is far different from your own. But as Sally Lehrman and Venise Wagner point out in Chapter 2 “Implicit Bias – Addressing the Bias Within Us,” it’s easy to ignore some people and to downplay some perspectives. Reporters frequently interview the easy‐to‐reach contacts already in their cell phones rather than strangers they have to seek out. Journalists may think to call Arab Americans to get reaction to a war in the Middle East or an act of terrorism, but do they seek them out when writing a story about Medicare or tax reform? Black people are prominently featured in stories about crime, sports, poverty and racial discord but how often do you see them quoted in Mother’s Day features or technology stories?
This book is about going past the usual sources and representing the patchwork quilts of the communities we cover. It’s also about facing our own prejudices and biases, of climbing out of our comfortable cocoons. I know it’s easy to think we don’t have bias. We’re good people. We decry racism. Many of us want to “afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted,” as they old saying goes. But we – all of us – also grew up with certain blinders that narrow our perspective and keep us from seeing the whole story. This bias may crop up when you notice men hanging out in front of a graffiti‐covered liquor store in the middle of the day and you clutch your expensive camera a little closer. It may arise when you’re doing person‐on‐the‐street interviews in a neighborhood of immigrants and you avoid approaching Asian people for fear they may not speak English. Or it may come up when you’re interviewing a person who identifies as non‐binary and you struggle to use the right pronoun.
Question your own assumptions. Seek out the people you don’t identify with, people who don’t remind you of your grandmother or cousin.
This guide is not the last word but rather a jumping‐off place. After reading The Diversity Style Guide, start talking about these issues with your classmates, colleagues, supervisors and friends. If we’ve done our job, this book will spark further discussion, debate, even argument, in classrooms and newsrooms around the country. These issues aren’t easy to talk about. Emotions may run high. Remember that each of us comes out of a unique human experience, shaped by parents, teachers, neighbors, friends and enemies, as well as by the media.
Consider the role you play in perpetuating and busting stereotypes. Think carefully about the words you use. Whether you’re a reporter for a college newspaper or the editor of The New York Times, you can make a difference.
Rachele Kanigel
A Note about Capitalization
You’ll notice that races in this book are capitalized. There has been much discussion about whether the first letter in Black and White (and Brown) should be capitalized. Most journalism style guides, including those produced by the Associated Press and The New York Times, put both White and Black in all lowercase letters. Essence and Ebony magazines, The Chicago Defender and many other publications serving African‐American communities capitalize Black (but only some of them capitalize White). Some say Black should be capitalized the way Asian and Hispanic are, while others note the latter trace their origins to proper names, which are always capitalized. Black and White don’t.
When I looked to other experts for guidance, the advice was contradictory. The National Association of Black Journalists does not capitalize Black in its publications, including the NABJ Style Guide. But the team that put together 100 Questions & Answers About African Americans, after much debate, decided to put a capital letter on Black. Many of the terms related to Black and African‐American people in The Diversity Style Guide come from these two guides. For the sake of consistency, I had to make a judgment call. After much research and consideration, I elected to capitalize Black and White (and the less‐used Brown) when used in a racial context.
It was a tough decision, one that literally kept me up at night. But I chose to capitalize races because that capital letter offers a modicum of respect, a recognition that these are not just colors but ethnicities like Asian American, Jewish and Greek. I was also moved by the passionate testimonials of people who argue for capitalization:
For me, in the era of Black Lives Matter, capital‐B Black is an act of defiance against a society that often paints minorities as secondary. That inferiority nags at me when I’m called a racial slur; when I’m forced onto the road because a group of white kids see me and won’t share the sidewalk; when a security guard follows me around a store. Trying to explain to your (often) white editor that Black is so closely tied to your own lived experience can be complicated and emotional. I’ve heard “I just don’t get it” too many times. But when the profession meant to expose systemic issues doesn’t “get it,” that becomes yet another barrier.
—Eternity Martis, “A Capital Idea: Reflections on the politics of capitalization,” Ryerson Review of Journalism
If ‘African American’ is inadequate, then we cannot settle for a lowercased “black.” To validate the need for capitalization, we need to prove the uniqueness of the culture of Black people in America, and the most painful part of this journey is acknowledging that for long stretches of American life, Black people were not even legally considered people.
—Barrett Holmes Pittner “The Discussion on Capitalizing the ‘B’ in ‘Black’ Continues,” The Huffington Post
This is about identity and respect. With a mere slash of a copyeditor’s pen, Black culture is reduced to a color. It seems silly to have to spell it out, that black with a lower case “b” is a color, whereas Black with a capital “B” refers to a group of people whose ancestors were born in Africa, were brought to the United States against their will, spilled their blood, sweat and tears to build this nation into a world power and along the way managed to create glorious works of art, passionate music, scientific discoveries, a marvelous cuisine, and untold literary masterpieces. When a copyeditor deletes the capital “B,” they are in effect deleting the history and contributions of a people.
—Change.org petition sent to the Associated Press and The New York Times
While many of those who champion the capitalization of Black don’t capitalize White, I advocate consistency. So Black, White (and Brown, which is occasionally used in this book) are capitalized in The Diversity Style Guide. The only exceptions are direct quotations from texts in which the words are not capitalized.
If you write for a publication, I encourage you to check your organization’s style guide – and, if the spirit moves you, to challenge it. Even if your editors don’t change the guidelines, you’re bound to have an interesting discussion that may prompt others in the newsroom to think about race in a new way.
Part ICovering a Diverse Society
1Why is Diversity So Important?
Rachele Kanigel
Journalism is sometimes described as a mirror that society holds up to itself. When the public looks in that mirror, it is important that it see faces that reflect the diversity of the community. But it must see more, much more. lt must see that the stories we tell, the experiences we illuminate, the public policies we explore, the communities we describe – the entire body of the very work we do – reflect those same diverse realities.
Raul Ramirez, print and broadcast journalist, news executive, educatorSeptember 5, 1946–November 15, 20131
On a fall day in 2015, staff members of The Seattle Times gathered to talk about how the paper was covering the social unrest that was sweeping the country. It was the height of the Black Lives Matter movement, and there had been demonstrations in Seattle and at nearby universities, as well as cities and college campuses around the country, protesting racist incidents, the killings of unarmed Black and Latino men by police officers, and other issues related to race and ethnicity.
Tyrone Beason, a staff writer for the newspaper’s magazine, Pacific NW, almost didn’t attend the meeting. He had been to these sorts of gatherings before and had been frustrated by the big talk and lack of action, so he headed out to lunch. But soon after he left the building, something compelled him back. He returned to the office and found a large crowd of staffers in the “fish bowl,” the glassed‐in area in the middle of the newsroom where the staff often gathered for discussions. “It was packed,” Beason recalled. “That was the first indication that something was different, that other people were feeling the way I was feeling.”2
Beason, who is Black, was disappointed by how the paper had been covering the protests, which had sometimes led to traffic gridlock and freeway closures. “A lot of our coverage reflected the frustration that the protesters had disrupted the daily rhythm of life and did not really explore the issues around the demonstrations,” Beason said. “At times, it seemed our framing of the demonstrations missed the larger point that something momentous was happening, that Black Lives Matter wasn’t a fleeting or merely inconvenient phenomenon.”
Beason stood in the back of the room, surveying the crowd, silently listening to the comments. And then he spoke up. “Part of what bothers me about our coverage here is that the room itself doesn’t reflect the community we live in.”
Like most mainstream newspapers in the United States, The Seattle Times was, and continues to be, a majority‐White news organization. Beason was one of just a handful of African Americans on the staff. According to the American Society of News Editors’ annual newsroom census for that year, 9.5 percent of the staff was Asian American, 3.6 percent was Black, 7.1 percent was Hispanic and 0.6 percent was American Indian. With a total of 20.8 percent people of color, The Seattle Times actually had one of the more diverse newsrooms in the country. In 2015, just 12.8 percent of journalists in the newsrooms surveyed were members of racial or ethnic minorities. Many small to mid‐size newspapers didn’t have a single person of color, according to the ASNE survey.3
Beason noted that the racial and ethnic make‐up of the staff affected everything the paper did, from the headlines and stories it ran to how photos were shot, selected and placed, to the way the home page was assembled.
The discussion in the informal staff meeting that day sparked more conversations. And those dialogues – some in later fish bowl meetings, others between colleagues over coffee or in a quiet corner of the newsroom – led the staff to rethink the way it covered race. “It was a real galvanizing moment for us as a staff,” said Beason, who had started at The Seattle Times as an intern and spent most of his career there.
Staff members began to gather for biweekly meetings to talk about diversity issues and to brainstorm ideas for new ways to cover these issues. “These meetings became like a safe haven for talking about race,” Beason said. “We created this space in the newsroom where we could talk as freely as if we were knocking back cocktails.”
In the beginning of 2016, Beason and a team of 13 others from around the newsroom – videographers and reporters, editors and developers, designers and photographers – started working on an interactive multimedia project to explore issues of race and ethnicity. They invited 18 people from a mix of backgrounds and perspectives to The Seattle Times video studio and asked them to talk about hot‐button words and phrases related to race and diversity: Person of Color, Politically Correct, Institutional Racism, Safe Space, White Privilege, Ally, All Lives Matter, Diversity, White Privilege, White Fragility, Racism. The reporters asked questions, but mostly they just listened while the sources talked. The community members’ responses were emotional, raw, edgy, honest. Sometimes their voices would rise in anger. Sometimes they would tear up, overcome by emotion.
The team spent months editing the 31 hours of interviews into a collection of powerful videos called “Under Our Skin” (Figure 1.1). The project was posted online on June 20, 2016 and the staff moderated a Reddit discussion4 about it later that week. Readers were encouraged to add their own comments and hundreds did. Radio and TV news stations invited members of the “Under Our Skin” team to speak about the project and what they’d learned from it. The newspaper presented the videos at community events and schools.
Figure 1.1“Under Our Skin”
A team from The Seattle Times spent nearly six months producing “Under Our Skin,” a video project in which 18 community members talked candidly about race.
Even more importantly, people in the community started using “Under Our Skin” as a jumping‐off place for their own discussions about race. After watching the videos, the University of Washington Huskies football coach invited a White Episcopal bishop who had participated in the video project to speak to his players about race.5 Schools, city government officials and churches began using the videos for diversity training, prompting more dialogue.
Beason said the project helped the staff communicate more candidly with each other and with the community they served.
“Since then, I’ve personally felt more comfortable talking about race, gender and other issues that I believe we should consider as we discuss what to cover and how to cover it,” Beason said in an email, nine months after “Under Our Skin” ran. “We have more work to do but I really believe we’ve broken the ice when it comes to discussing these sensitive topics.”
Diversity and Journalism
The staff of The Seattle Times recognized that diversity is a vital component of reporting and that they needed to change the culture of the newsroom to improve their coverage of the community. By diving in and exploring the thorny issues around race, the staff was able to report more deeply and thoroughly on the divisions and tensions that were playing out in the streets of their city.
Unfortunately, their efforts are so notable in part because they are the exception rather than the rule. Journalism has a long history of ignoring and misrepresenting certain groups and while most news organizations are more inclusive in their coverage than they were years ago, huge gaps remain.
“The greatest issue in journalism today is that we continue to distort and inaccurately portray communities of color,” Dori Maynard, then executive director of the Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education, said in an interview shortly before her death in 2015. “Given that communities of color are growing at a rapid rate, we’re not reflecting a big swath of our population. And that cuts away at our ethics, our credibility and our accuracy.”6
To get a sense of this, think about your favorite news source – a newspaper, online, mobile news, television or radio outlet – and ask yourself: Do the staff and the coverage truly reflect the community they strive to serve? Whether you like Fox News or NPR, The New York Times or Vice, take a look at the sources interviewed and the issues the news organization covers. Does the news outlet routinely tap a diverse group of sources? Do the people interviewed reflect the people walking the streets of that community? And if they don’t, who or what is missing? How often do you see Latinos or Arab Americans interviewed on the news? When was the last time you saw an African American pictured in the business section or an Asian American featured in the entertainment section?
While some may see attention to diversity issues in journalism as “political correctness,” responsible journalists increasingly see such efforts as a way to truly serve their audiences – and even save the industry from irrelevance.
If this sounds like hyperbole, consider the demographics of the United States. In 2016, people in racial and ethnic minority groups made up 38 percent of the U.S. population, and the country is getting more diverse every year.7 The U.S. Census Bureau has projected that by 2044 more than half of all adults in the United States will belong to a racial or ethnic group other than Caucasian.8 In the second half of the 21st century, there will likely be no racial/ethnic majority in the country.
But diversity doesn’t just refer to racial and ethnic minorities. People with disabilities, gay and transgender people, people from certain religious groups and those in other minority groups often complain that news coverage is biased, incomplete or inaccurate – or that they’re left out of the media entirely. As Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel wrote in their book, The Elements of Journalism:What Newspeople Should Know and The Public Should Expect: “If we think of journalism as social cartography, the map should include news of all our communities, not just those with attractive demographics or strong appeal to advertisers. To do otherwise is to create maps with whole areas missing.”9
Ray Suarez, a veteran broadcast journalist who worked for NPR, PBS and Al Jazeera America, as well as other news organizations, said the major news events of the past decade make having a diverse newsroom more vital than ever before. “It’s hard to imagine covering recent events in the life of the country with mono‐cultural newsrooms,” he said in an email interview. “The shootings of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown, the rise of Black Lives Matter, the debates over legal residence and deportation, the torchlight parade in Charlottesville, the new nationalism of Donald Trump … they all demand a look at local communities and the country as a whole from multiple perspectives. A groupthink‐riddled newsroom is going to have a hard time explaining this stressed America to its readers, listeners, and viewers.”10
The changing nature of news also makes diversity an imperative. Just consider:
People rely on news media more than ever before. While newspaper readership and broadcast news watching may be on the wane, people are constantly searching for news and information through digital sources.
News today is accessible for much longer than it used to be. Not that long ago, a print newspaper was the next day’s birdcage liner and news broadcasts were heard just once and never repeated. But online archives, YouTube and podcasts mean that information – and misinformation – can be available indefinitely. A single journalist’s mistake may be picked up and repeated for years. Now, more than ever, journalists need to choose their words carefully.
In a high‐pressure news environment, accuracy is even more vital. The 24/7 news economy necessitates fast decisions and sometimes a rush to publish or broadcast. Without proper training, journalists working on tight deadlines can make serious errors of fact or judgment.
Most of the vital issues of our day have a diversity component. Politics, immigration, international affairs, health care, the economy, education – virtually all of the major issues journalists write about have diversity embedded in them. And diversity matters crop up even in “light” topics like sports and entertainment.
The Five W’s of Journalism From a Diverse Perspective By Aly Colón
Aly Colón first published this piece on the Poynter website in 2002. His advice for rethinking the five Ws of journalism from a diverse perspective still holds true.
WHO:Who’s missing from the story?
WHAT:What’s the context for the story?
WHERE:Where can we go for more information?
WHEN:When do we use racial or ethnic identification?
WHY:Why are we including or excluding certain information?
Making Connections: A Strategy for Connecting with Diverse Communities
Online Sites, Publications, Broadcasts
Search out online sites that focus on issues of diversity, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, disabilities and other diverse specialties. Read publications, watch television/cable TV, listen to radio owned by or oriented toward diverse groups.
Specialists
Contact diversity and/or race relations specialists. Check universities, institutes, diversity consulting firms, companies known for diversity efforts. Meet with diversity committees or diverse people in your own organization.
Organizations
Contact organizations that represent diverse groups, for example, Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, African American Coalition, Asian American Association, The Deaf Center. Your own company may have its own versions of these groups as well.
Leaders
Ask everyone you meet who they respect as knowledgeable people in their communities. Seek out unofficial leaders.
List
Create a list of people you can turn to in diverse communities who represent different perspectives within their groups.
Visits
Visit online sites and communities different from your own. Eat at ethnic restaurants. Shop at ethnic stores. Meet the owners.
Contact
Remain in regular contact with people on your diversity list. Email them. Meet them for coffee, tea, breakfast or lunch in their communities.
Aly Colón is the John S. and James L. Knight Professor of Media Ethics at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia. He has a long background in news and journalism ethics, including positions as director of standards and practices at NBC News and as ethics group leader at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla., where he taught and oversaw ethics training for young and mid‐career journalists.
[This piece was first published on Poynter.com and is reprinted with permission from the author.]
Fault lines
Journalists don’t intentionally ignore or misrepresent large swaths of the population, of course, but we all look at the world through a particular lens and whether we like it or not, we have blinders that keep us from seeing parts of a story. These blinders have kept people from understanding the power of systemic racism and the way slavery and other forms of oppression and injustice leave their mark not just on one generation but on many.
Robert C. Maynard, who in 1983 became the first African American to own a major metropolitan newspaper when he bought The Oakland Tribune, developed a concept to help explain the fissures in our society – and in media coverage. Influenced by the seismic faults that run through California – and literally shake it up from time to time – he believed that each person sees the world through the “fault lines” of race, class, gender, generation and geography and that these enduring forces shape lives, experiences and social tensions. They also shape the way journalists approach a story. By recognizing and rethinking these fault lines, he reasoned, journalists can report stories in a more nuanced, complete and balanced way.
For example, imagine two journalists are reporting a story about an old apartment building being torn down in a low‐income neighborhood to make room for a luxury hotel. A reporter who comes from a well‐to‐do family might see the new building as a way to spruce up the neighborhood and bring jobs and new businesses to a previously run‐down part of town. A reporter who comes from a working‐class background may be more likely to focus on the families being displaced. Based on their personal life experiences, these two reporters may see different angles on the story, interview different sources, ask different questions and structure their stories differently.
Other factors can also shape the way you, as a journalist, might cover a story – political leanings, religious background, whether you’re a parent, your experience with illness or disability. These life experiences can’t help but influence the way journalists see the world – and the way they report on it.
So how do we rise above our own fault lines? The first step is to recognize them and the inherent biases we all bring to our work. The next is to reach beyond the comfortable and the close at hand. As a journalist, it’s easy to call “the usual suspects,” the sources you’ve been tapping for months or years. You know the sources who will return your phone calls and come up with a catchy quote. But to go beyond your fault lines, you need to reach out to people who may not be so accessible and convenient.
“It takes a lot of work to make sure you go to people and places and environments that are not part of your normal fare,” Aly Colón, a longtime journalist who is now the Knight Professor of Media Ethics at Washington and Lee University, said in an interview. “You have to force yourself to broaden your understanding, to go to different people to make sure you include those you may not even know about but should know about.”11
By deepening their reporting and going beyond the usual suspects, journalists can add what Colón calls “muscle” to their stories. “Too often as journalists we settle for the skeleton of the story. What I try to encourage journalists to do is to think about those elements in the story that help the reader or viewer or listener to understand that story more completely. If the race or ethnicity or gender or orientation adds an element of understanding to the story itself – that without it you would not find the story as complete – that should be the guide.”
