Q&A: Lauren Williams, Nieman Fellow and Features Editor at Essence.
This week, The Idea talked with Williams about her path to the Fellowship and how publishers might better serve African American audiences.
The Idea: You’ve been a Nieman Fellow at Harvard since August. How did you get involved with the Nieman Fellowship?
LW: I did a journalism retreat two years ago called The Diverse Future for journalists of color. We spent a week in upstate New York talking about issues in the field, what our newsrooms are like, what it’s like to be a journalist of color in mainstream media, and strategies and tactics to navigate your daily world. The man who organizes that is a longtime journalist, Mark Carter, and he was a Nieman Fellow. He told me about the program. The idea that you could take a sabbatical from your job and do whatever really interests you and study at Harvard is an amazing experience. I finally decided to apply because, I think after the election, I really wanted to think about what my future looked like and where I wanted to be. I had spent three-and-a-half years at Essence, which I love, but I think I had reached a point in my career where I was ready to be introspective about next steps. And Nieman felt like the perfect place for that.
What are you working on?
Being at Essence has opened me up to how black women influence culture and trends in America, and I wanted to focus on that more deeply. That was what I pitched: that I would study the various contributions of black women in the U.S. to culture and society since the early 1600s. I would love to start my own media company that focuses on black women — there are 24 million of us in the country yet we only have one media outlet that caters to us, and that’s Essence.
You mentioned that the election affected your decision to move forward with Nieman. Do you think the election has changed the role of publishers produced by and designed for women and people of color?
I don’t think it’s really changed for us. At Essence, we’ve always been a publication that advocates for black women. We’ve never been unclear about that. Our coverage is always going to seek to support and address the issues that are affecting black women every day, and has since 1970. We do polls that ask readers about the top five issues that are of importance in terms of policy, and based on that we will try to have coverage that addresses those needs. So I don’t think that it’s really changed that much, in terms of our mission.
We’ve always been a publication that’s been very clear about advocating for black lives. In this current climate, I guess it’s become even more urgent, and that people do look to us a bit more for our writers’ opinions, our takes, or our reports on certain things as an outlet that speaks in a voice that you know is not racially biased — that has your best interest in mind. There’s a special trust between Essence and the Essence reader. It’s definitely a really critical time for us because I do think that our readers are looking to us for our coverage; for our reporting. What are our journalists thinking about what the world looks like right now?
What have you learned from your Nieman Fellowship about developing a media platform for black women?
I’m in a class at Harvard Business School called Black Business Leaders and Entrepreneurs. Out of a couple thousand cases that are taught at Harvard Business School throughout the year, less than 1% of them have black protagonists. This class is specifically about black people who have started their own businesses, and everyone we study actually comes into the class on the day that we cover them. That has given me a much larger purview — I know the barriers that African Americans face acquiring funding and other basic things — but hearing the first-hand experiences of these black entrepreneurs has given me a bit more hope.
The idea of starting a media company right now might not seem the most logical, but hearing all the challenges that various black entrepreneurs have gone through has made me hopeful. I know for a fact that black women crave quality journalism and representation. And that keeps me going. Hearing stories from even my classmates has reaffirmed that this type of thing needs to be done, and that this is something the journalism field needs. More than anything, it has reaffirmed how underserved the African American market is and how quality journalism that speaks to their African Americans’ needs can really do well.
Do you have any ideas on how publishers can better serve the African American and other underrepresented communities?
Absolutely. I think the key is to seek out diverse voices. It’s not just doing it when something happens in the news. It’s not just some reactionary, “There was a march!” or “Someone was killed by the police, so lets scramble to find a black writer to write about this.” It really starts with hiring and there are studies that show, the more diverse your staff, the better off your business. We know that there is such racial bias in reporting, even from our biggest, most respected institutions. The biggest way to combat that is to seek out journalists of color.
One thing we hear a lot is “I don’t know where to find them!” That, I feel, is a really poor excuse. I think once black folks are incorporated more into newsrooms, it will automatically affect the reporting, and it will increase the quality, scope, and perspective of the publisher. It feels so clear to me — I have co-Fellows from The Times and The Associated Press and they talk about what their newsrooms look like. There is no disadvantage in diversifying your newsroom — it only serves to increase the quality of your coverage and to have a more diverse breadth of perspective. I think once that happens, you’ll start to see a change in the coverage and it will be more encompassing — and I think more accurate and more representative — of the United States.
What is something interesting that you’ve seen from a media outlet other than your own?
We just had a seminar with the president of Quartz, Jay Lauf, and I think what they’re doing is so interesting. We always lament the business model for newspapers, magazines and online media entities. What Quartz has managed to do in terms of advertising and making the user experience seamless is impressive. After meeting him, I spent so much time on the site going through everything — their journalists, their perspective, and the way that they grab readers. It just seems that they are hyper-tuned in to what their reader wants. It’s C-suite executives (who are overserved, because the journalism for them is so good) who read Quartz, because Quartz is so smart about reaching them where they are and anticipating their needs. I think it’s such an amazing model. It got me really excited about the future of journalism because if we can serve these very specific audiences and if we can do it thoughtfully and effectively, we can make money from it. So that’s one model — just from the editorial to the advertising to the brand as a whole — that really impressed me.
This Spotlight was originally published in the March 5th issue of The Idea. For more Q&As with inside intel like this, subscribe to The Idea, Atlantic Media’s weekly newsletter covering the latest trends and innovations in media.
