Having just listened to this panel interview on the state of diversity in Canada’s newsrooms, I have to say, I am somewhat revolted. Revolted because Canadian journalism isn’t diverse enough? No. Revolted because these reporters do not seem to understand what journalism is or how the news business works.
“There are missing voices and missing perspectives within the newsroom,” says Anita Li. Well yeah. It is a newsroom; your “voice” and your “perspective” have no role in reporting the news, maybe start a blog.
And again here “Krishnan said that the only fix to the problem was to have people of colour in decision-making positions in the newsroom. ‘Their opinions need to be taken seriously’. No actually, they don’t; not in a newsroom. If you want to talk about the Editorial department, talk about the Editorial department; that is where opinions live.
They take issue with the fact that Canadian newsrooms do not accurate reflect the diversity of the Canadian population; but why should they? Why does anyone expect any industry to evenly reflect the demographics of the entire community? That doesn’t make sense. Why do you assume that a shortage of minority journalists is necessarily because newspapers are just refusing to hire them? Maybe Canada’s 20% non-White population does not produce enough people who are interested in journalism as a career to sufficiently diversify the nation’s newsrooms.
They complain that news coverage seems to focus on issues that appeal to White suburban families. Oh, do you mean, subscribers and the target audience of your newspaper’s advertisers?
Look, if you want newspapers and broadcast news to better reflect the interests and sentiments of minority communities, you are not going to achieve that by hiring more minority journalists. You do that by increasing the number of minorities who pay for advertising space in the newspaper. Suddenly the paper will begin reporting on issues that matter to that advertiser’s customer base; like magic.
That these journalists appear to not have a clue what news reporting is, or how the business works, is kind of astonishing.
O Canada! Indeed.
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-september-20-2019-1.5291245/missing-voices-and-missing-perspectives-trudeau-blackface-scandal-renews-calls-for-newsroom-diversity-1.5292338?__vfz=medium%3Dsharebar&fbclid=IwAR0LFXPkiaxYrwvP_tiq_dq0SKFKmOentzxrELbN3Vr82awTwxXqPZ7MLr4
External Context سياق خارجي
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-september-20-2019-1.5291245/missing-voices-and-missing-perspectives-trudeau-blackface-scandal-renews-calls-for-newsroom-diversity-1.5292338?__vfz=medium%3Dsharebar&fbclid=IwAR0LFXPkiaxYrwvP_tiq_dq0SKFKmOentzxrELbN3Vr82awTwxXqPZ7MLr4