Media Diversified: Opening up the Conversation

In the latest On Purpose blog, Henna Butt (January 2012 On Purpose Fellow) discusses the underrepresentation of marginalised voices in UK media today. Henna is the editor for Media Diversified (mediadiversified.org), a non-profit organisation that aims to help writers and journalists of colour be published in national newspapers, magazines and to get their voices heard in the broadcast media.

Last summer Samantha Asamadu, founder of Media Diversified, wrote in the Guardian about how the media in the UK is not representative of the ethnic diversity that she sees everyday on the streets of London.

Much like the old Etonian vanguard at Westminster (a situation that even Tory MP Michael Gove deemed “ridiculous”) mainstream media institutions too, continue to be lacking when it comes to supporting people from marginalised groups into the industry.

A recent Guardian article drew attention to this issue when discussing the innovations supposedly afoot in media as successful journalists leave large organisations to found their own start-ups. Even with such fragmentation occurring, Emily Bell notes, it stills seems to be the same groups that are having their say.

In a bid to redress an imbalance that resulted in just two of the named ethnic minority witnesses at the Leveson inquiry, documentary film maker and former journalist Asamadu founded Media Diversified, a non-profit organisation that works towards supporting journalists who come from ethnic minority communities.

The Media Diversified Team

The barriers to entry in the creative industries are high. Whilst over 50% of Londoners are from BME backgrounds, the proportion of BME individuals working in these industries is half of that which is found across the rest of the economy. With unpaid internships still standard practice for getting a foot in the door, young people from poorer backgrounds are almost immediately locked out. This impacts disproportionately on ethnic minority representation considering that these communities tend to have lower incomes.

It’s important for everyone living in our diverse society that mainstream media become more pluralistic. Non-BME journalists might cover issues that affect minority communities, but this often occurs without creating space for marginalised groups to articulate their own experiences. Why should this be the case when there are experts from within these communities who could give us a more nuanced picture? It’s inexorable that someone looking from the outside in will conflate and misrepresent by virtue of being outside. Consider for example, how Anjem Choudhary, rather than say, entrepreneur James Caan, is consistently rolled out as the voice of Muslim Britain.

At the same time, BME youth grow up feeling disenfranchised and disconnected when they cannot identify with the images of “Britons” that they are exposed to in their everyday lives. Building opportunities for ethnic minority journalists to talk about all issues — not just those linked to race — opens up a conversation that shows how being an ethnic minority in the UK intersects with all manner of current affairs, from foreign policy to food banks.

Media Diversified is a young and growing organisation which seeks to cultivate and promote work from journalists who are in need of a platform to boost their work. This is done by providing advice and contacts as well as through promotion of content on a website that already boasts more than 80,000 monthly views. Live since July 2013, the initiative is already diversifying the UK’s media landscape with some writers having featured their work in New Statesman, The Telegraph and The Independent as well as many more.

Media Diversified embarked on a Kickstarter Campaign on 27th March, and is looking to build sustainability into the organisation’s model while also providing a much-needed service. Funds raised will contribute to the creation of a directory of ethnic minority writers and experts which can be accessed by paying media outlets.

Waiting for a ‘trickle down’ that will never come isn’t going to remedy the issue. Only positive action is going to create a break with the practices which have governed media institutions until now. I, for one, am sick of hearing a narrative of history told from only one vantage point.