Midwest Journalism Conference Response

I attended the keynote session of this conference entitled, “Diversity in Newsrooms, Diversity in Coverage,” given by Keith Woods.

I was most touched by two parts of the session: the things he was hearing in newsrooms and his “strategies that move the needle.” It was powerful to hear the things Keith has been hearing and his reponse to them. Then, his strategies to move the needle applies some action to those statements.

Three of his points stuck out to me the most: a culture of critique, implicit bias work, and continuous conversations. I think these are the most basic ways of improving our newsrooms. These will be the foundation of the more complicated steps toward inclusion.

First, we need to be comfortable criticizing our colleagues and receiving criticism from them. We need to be open to learning how to better our ourselves in our reporting and writing.

Then, with our criticisms and new knowledge, we will work on eliminating implicit bias. Open our minds to the fact that we don’t know people until we know them.

Finally, we keep these conversations going. We don’t stop doing this stuff because we learned one thing. Inclusion has to be treated like life-long learning.

If we follow these steps, we can create a better work environment that feel inclusive to all and we can accurately report on all the people we come across in our day to day using inclusive language and reporting styles.