Looking To The Future
By Jolie Baynes
To my fellow journalists, we must think ahead to the future of our industry. As a 23-year-old writer, I haven’t been around long enough to witness and experience what most seasoned professionals have.
However, in my two-plus decades, I have seen and experienced some of the biggest breaking news headlines and technological advances of these last few decades. I’ve watched the .com bubble explode to decimate how we as writers report breaking news, not to mention it has created a dynamic where anyone can be a reporter, blogger, or journalist. I’ve seen my parents morning newspaper disappear, only to be reincarnated by a tablet and an iPad. I say all this to emphasize that change is inevitable in this industry but there is still undeniable progress to be made in our ever-evolving world of journalism. Most important being, diversity in the newsroom, journalistic integrity, and accountability for the news and social media platforms.
While change is good we must ensure that the changes that take place are beneficial to all of us, not just those who can afford these advantages. Level this journalistic playing field by gender, race, age sexual identity, and ability. In these coming years, it can’t be about who you know, but what you know your experience.
Over the subsequent decades the Journalism industry has been dominated by mostly white male editors who overlooked female and minority writers for niche pieces. In an article by the Columbia Journalism Press Decades of Failure, the article expresses despair in the news industries complete lack of diversity in women and minority writers, and even more so in these minorities not being considered for front page stories.
Despite being in majority-minority cities, the newsrooms of The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, for instance, are both 81 percent white. The Washington Post is 70 percent white.
Minorities make up 72 percent of the population of Los Angeles, but only 33 percent of the Los Angeles Times. According to the Radio Television Digital News Association, the numbers in other media look slightly better, if still not impressive: in 2018, about a quarter of staffers in TV newsrooms are people of color; in radio, it’s 11.7 percent. The American Society of Magazine Editors doesn’t track racial and ethnic diversity, though its industry’s mastheads remain stacked with old white men.
Atop the diversity problem of American journalism is the integrity of this industry as a whole, and how far it’s fallen. When the founding fathers wrote the first amendment the said that Congress should make no law abridging freedom of speech or of the press. From there publication took pride in their duty to the publish reliable, well informed, and thought-provoking content to the public. It is the duty of journalists and publication to uphold these standards to research, vet their sources, and make sure the sources are reliable.
To challenge the government and be the check on their power through outstanding news collection. It’s sad to see how this industry has gone from groundbreaking muckraking stories and publishing the Pentagon papers to ill-informed sources and the Sinclair broadcasting groups terror alert desk. So to be clear there is no room for anything less than incomparable, and robust reporting for those in the news industry. Otherwise there must be accountability forthose who choose to cheat journalistic standards, and betray the trust of those readers,and watchers who depend of the integrity of a news room.
Overall there have been serious changes in the landscape of journalism, and there will be more to come. However as a journalist, I must say that my disappointment comes from knowing that as I enter this professional part of my career the field is unbalanced, the deck is stacked, and our commitment as journalists seem to be compromised. So it is my hope that for the survival and improvement of this industry we reclaim an oath to standards in our writing and reporting; commit to diversity in our newsrooms, and most importantly hold each other accountable, or else what’s next? I wholeheartedly intend to do so and hope the same for my fellow journalists.
