The press is not the “enemy of the people” but neither is it the friend of diversity

On Thursday over 300 US newspapers published editorials defending the fundamental principle of the freedom of the press and pushing back against President Trump’s assertion that the press  are “the enemy of the people”.

As a black journalist I found them hard to read as they all seemed to have the one fundamental flaw:

Freedom of the press is meaningless if diverse groups are excluded from being able to exercise that freedom in any meaningful way.

I know in this age of political extremes you are increasingly forced to pick sides. You are either pro-Trump or anti-Trump. You are either a Brexiteer or a Remainer. You are either with the “forces of good” or you have gone over to the “dark side”. That is why I hesitated to write this piece.

But if I believe in championing diversity in journalism then I think it would be wrong for me to be quiet on this important issue.

The New York Times editorial quoted the US Supreme Court in 1964 that “Public discussion is a political duty.”

This is the same publication that admitted that of the 20-plus of its reporters who covered the 2016 presidential campaign only two of them were black. They didn’t have a single Latino or Asian reporter covering the election, remember this is the election in which Mexican migration and US-China relations were core election issues..

Maybe the New York Times has reinterpreted the Supreme Court judgment to mean; “Public discussion [amongst white people] is a political duty”.

The Boston Globe, who was the driving force behind the mass editorials, quoted one of America’s founding fathers in its editorial on protecting the freedom of the press:

"Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost,” wrote Thomas Jefferson.

Of course for black journalists this freedom seems “limited” almost every day as they are systematically excluded from the newsroom - either by accident or design.

Of the 32,900 people employed in newspaper newsrooms across the US, only 12.76%, or 4,200, are racial minorities according to a survey published by the American Society of News Editors and the School of Journalism in 2015. Remember this is 12.76% compared to an ethnic minority population in the US of close to 40%.

As a black journalist this brings me to my most important point.

When we talk about diversity we are often seen as a “add-on”, relegated to the “children's table” while the “grown-ups” talk about serious issues. We are literally invited to talk about diversity at the end of the conversation to add some colour to the debate (pun very much intended).

I have no doubt that over the next few weeks all the publications that wrote articles about freedom of the press will at some point also write pieces about the importance of diversity in the tech industry or at the Oscars or in politics. But that is beside the point. 

When it matters.

When the "real journalists" are talking about a serious issue they don't even think about diversity (and "real journalists" usually mean white and male in case it wasn't obvious)

We must strive to make diversity central to all our journalism. Not just write an additional piece about it when it is convenient. 

In my view the only way you can do that is by making sure the journalists working in your newsroom acurately reflect the diverse society they live in and therefore think about these issues all the time.

The idea that you can write editorial pieces addressing the President’s claim that journalists are the “enemy of the people” and not acknowledge the issue of diversity only demonstrates how far away newsrooms currently are from so many of the very people they claim to serve.