The Future of Media Already Looks Too Much Like the Past
In August, a study was presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association that found homeless people were turning to social media sites because it was the one place where they
felt everyone was truly equal and they could interact with others without fear of being judged.
It’s that same inclusive opportunity that I, and many of my Latino online media
colleagues, saw in the Internet. For us, the Internet afforded an opportunity to participate in the reinvention of media, as equal partners, collaborators and publishers.
Online media, by
its very name, symbolized the merger of two worlds for a new future. It was envisioned, by most of us, that online newsrooms would resemble the crew of any Star Trek starship using the latest
platforms, apps and technology to tell and deliver stories and engage readers in new and exciting ways.
Unfortunately, that tired saying “old habits die hard,” has never been
truer and is casting a cloud over the future of media to be the all-inclusive industry envisioned for the 21st Century.
This year’s American Society of News Editors’ (ASNE)
Newsroom Employment Census found that regardless of market size, journalists of color employed in print newsrooms were “substantially” less than the percentage of minorities in their
respective markets.
The same survey listed over 70 participating online news organizations and, while the ASNE deemed the number who responded too low to include in the final results, their
data revealed a sad reality — some online news sites located in areas of high populations of color had not one single journalist of color on their staff.
Other online news
organizations that did report journalists of color within their ranks had an overrepresentation of one particular ethnicity, at the expense of others.
Only a handful of online news orgs
fulfilled the vision of equitable diversity.
Some in the news industry have downplayed the lack of diversity in online newsrooms by pointing out that the Internet has afforded journalist
entrepreneurs, like myself, the opportunity to create our own niches.
While that’s true, it still doesn’t address the fundamental issue of inclusion in mainstream media.
Creating our own niches, in essence, has segregated ethnic news sites from the mainstream. Instead of being regarded as new media pioneers, along with our mainstream colleagues, ethnic new media is
still seen as “alternative media.”
It’s an ironic viewpoint considering it wasn’t that long ago that every online news site was considered “alternative
media,” especially if there was a print counterpart.
To continue to exclude journalists of color on staff at mainstream news sites doesn’t make sense in a nation that is already
in some states “majority-minority” and is on track to achieve that distinction nationally in the not far-off future.
What’s not widely understood in today’s
predominantly white newsrooms is that just as the Internet opened doors of opportunity for news entrepreneurs of color, it also created opportunities for people of color to have equal access to
news.
It’s that new demand that drives niche news sites to fill and nurture while mainstream online media carries on like it’s the 20th Century.
Marisa
Treviño is the publisher of Latina Lista, a news site founded in 2004, targeting English-speaking Latinos.
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