The quest for diversity evolves

When I think about the future of diversity, belonging, equity and inclusion in the journalism industry in these uncertain times, I remind myself it’s nothing new to those who have studied and been a part of this work that has been going on for more than seven decades. DBEI work has survived being en vogue, falling out of favor, then welcomed back again — several times.

My hope is that continuing to be intentional about including audiences we’re missing and people who have long been shut out of pathways to careers in journalism will push us to want to better understand one another — of all backgrounds. It’s one of the greatest challenges in this pluralistic society: trying to navigate change left and right on several fronts amid the advent of social media and smartphones that allow people to self-publish feelings sometimes presented as facts.

The DBEI in newsrooms movement is often traced by journalism scholars to when the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders — better known as the Kerner Commission due to the name of its chairman, Illinois Gov. Otto Kerner — issued a “blistering” report in February 1968. The report attributed some of the civil unrest at the time to a media industry which wouldn’t hire Black journalists and humanize Black communities, a sentiment many other groups over the years also have expressed.

Fast-forward to the year 2025. There were once hopes that our media industry, motivated by the Kerner Commission’s findings, would reflect the nation by now when it comes to racial parity. The American Society of Newspaper Editors pledged in 1978 to create workforces that reflect the nation’s diversity by the year 2000. But the country’s newsrooms failed to meet that deadline — so ASNE set a new goal of 2025.

But as recently as 2018, as Nieman Lab reported, only 17 percent of newsrooms would even submit their demographic data to researchers. Then ASNE — which reorganized in 2019 into the News Leaders Association — dissolved altogether this year, leaving a hole in the journalism association space and the future of its flagship diversity survey in limbo as NLA seeks a new home for it.

NLA most recently found that people of color comprised about 22 percent of U.S. newsroom staff, compared to around 42 percent of the U.S. population. So we’re definitely blowing deadline again on that 2025 parity goal — and in journalism, we know that’s not good.

Understandably, those from historically marginalized communities and those committed to equity and representation in newsrooms of all backgrounds are doubtful that the outlook will get better anytime soon.

However, we should remember that during the first Trump administration, news events — the #MeToo movement, a pandemic which disproportionately affected people of color and the disabled, and the murder of George Floyd and other unarmed Black people — pushed the news industry to reinvigorate its diversity efforts for staff recruitment and retention.

Then again came the inevitable backlash to DEI — notably in schools, universities, and businesses, with bills passed throughout the nation. Even within the field, some said quietly that some DBEI efforts didn’t bring along everyone with its framing. White and/or cisgender, straight, male folks said they felt left behind, and some of us worried that we needed to figure out how to better engage with those who felt concerned or nervous about change in order to build a stronger coalition.

With that whiplash of the past decade, a second Trump administration brings unpredictability for DBEI initiatives in the media industry. Still, with the far-reaching effects of online culture, it doesn’t seem realistic that all progress will be erased. Most U.S. workers see good in inclusion work — who doesn’t want to be included? Nearly four of every five respondents in a survey by Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism said new efforts to promote DBEI have positively affected the journalism industry. Nearly 87 percent of the respondents were white journalists.

In recent years, Investigative Reporters & Editors has expanded its work on inclusion and its DBEI training remains in demand because journalists want to better cover their communities. And IRE will continue its work.

Most folks say they’re turning to what they can control and seek to avoid the panic and anger that may have left them exhausted but not ultimately broken. What I hear is a mix of anxiety, resilience, and curiosity — we are journalists, after all — about the back and forth we’ve seen at the ballot box and in the culture wars in recent decades.

What I hear — especially among DBEI educators — is proactive talk about what we can do to bring everyone along, to move from what can feel like shaming to inspiring others to reconsider their outlook. There are hopes to focus on combating disinformation in news deserts, in predominantly white and rural spaces as much as in immigrant communities where English isn’t the dominant language.

Some see the seesaw of election outcomes in recent years as a real opportunity to motivate people of different backgrounds to find common ground instead of icing each other out. Determining who offers the olive branch first seems to cause the most consternation.

As someone who is from several historically marginalized communities but has other societal privileges, when I marinate on what’s feasible for DBEI work and self-preservation personally, I often think of a quote by Kevin Nadal, a professor of psychology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, from an NPR piece. “Think about your role and your positionality, because if you’re a person with privilege and you could fight a little bit longer, then do it,” Nadal said. “But if you’re a person of a historically marginalized group, we want you to be alive and we want you to be healthy in order to continue this fight toward justice.”

At our core, journalists are not easily deterred. Now is another era of testing what we are made of. It’s time to keep up the work, however we each can, in ways grand and subtle.