#BlackJournalismMatters

Yesterday I watched the video that may well have changed race relations in America for a generation. But the video also reminded me of the power of journalism and the importance for diversity in our journalism. 

I am sure everyone is familiar with the video by now.

But for those who have not yet seen it, a black man’s head slumps backward in a car slowly dying, while next to him in the passenger seat a woman looks into the camera and explains that a Minnesota police officer just shot her fiancé four times. The black man is Philando Castile and the woman is Diamond Reynolds.

The video is shocking and its repercussions have only just started to be felt. Many people - from heads of state to international celebrities - have been suitably moved, and the hashtag #blacklivesmatter has grown in prominence - it’s even been used by the Chinese State Broadcaster CCTVNews.

I was moved too. However, when I watched the video I saw one of the most powerful and most professional pieces of journalism I have ever seen in over twenty years of working in television.

In the immediate aftermath of her fiancé being shot Diamond Reynolds becomes a journalist broadcasting to the world what has just happened. She remains calm, she captures all the right shots and describes the events in a clear linear narrative. 

Essentially, she uses all the basic principles and tools of journalism that are taught to student journalists all around the world: The 5 W’s: Who, What, Where, When and Why (and How).

And it’s this that is powerful. What the video demonstrates is that it is not simply the truth that changes the world - it is strong journalism that changes the world. Philando Castile’s killing was far from unique - it comes in a long line of black deaths at the hands of US police, and there have been videos of some of those deaths previously - a few even catching the shooting as it occurred. But there has never been this quality of journalism covering a death before.

And what should not be lost is the fact that it was a piece of journalism by a black woman.

In newsrooms across the US, and here in the UK, there are far too few black journalists working in them.  And the latest data from American Society of News Editors show that things are getting worse. The number of black journalists working at U.S. daily newspapers dropped 40% between 1997 and 2013 - that is almost 1,200 journalists who no longer write about events from a non-white perspective.

Diamond Reynold’s journalism proves the need for black journalists to tell news from their own perspective. The perspective of a reporter literally at the barrel of a gun is fundamentally different from the perspective of a reporter standing behind a policeman that is using or has used that gun.

If we want strong powerful journalism that can change the world we need to embrace diversity and the range of different perspectives that can give us.

#BlackLivesMatter is a globally trending hashtag that has become a defining political movement for millions of people. I hope that the editors of newsrooms and journalists around the world will start to realise that #BlackJournalismMatters too.