Categories: OLD Media Moves

Biz journalism needs more journalists of color

Christopher Nelson, a freelance journalist and graduate student at the Georgetown University Law Center, writes on the National Association of Black Journalists website about the lack of journalists of color he encountered when he attended the Society of American Business Editors and Writers conference last month.

Nelson writes, “Given the importance of reporting on the economy, including jobs numbers, the growth or lack thereof of national and international companies, consumer spending, tax policy, trade policy, and myriad other issues, it was quite startling. So I decided to explore the topic of diversity in business reporting.

“As an African-American journalist, I decided to look at this in terms of the state of the black business journalist. From personal experience, I know members of the National Association of Black Journalists who cover business news, including: Kortney Stringer, retail editor, the Associated Press; Michelle Singletary, Personal Finance Columnist, the Washington Post; Alfred Edmond Jr., Editor at Large, Black Enterprise magazine; Sharon Epperson, senior commodities correspondent and personal finance correspondent, CNBC; and Valerie Coleman Morris veteran business news anchor, just to name a few.

“Yet, I wondered why there aren’t more faces that reflect America’s growing diversity? ‘The thing about blacks and business journalism is we need to be there,’ said Shartia Brantley, a segment producer for CNBC’s ‘Street Signs.’

“Back in late 2008 media columnist Richard Prince used his column to explore whether the state of the economy would make business reporting more attractive for journalists of color.”

View Comments

Elias Jabbe says:
April 3, 2012 at 9:40 pm
Thanks for the article. I agree that more diversity is needed in business journalism and other fields. I am a former member of a college chapter of NABJ and I now cover international business and small business owners of all backgrounds (among other topics) on my editorial website MulticulturalMatters.org.
- Walden Siew says:
  April 6, 2012 at 11:49 am
  Chris,
  Thank you for your article and for attending the SABEW conference in Indianapolis. I'm a SABEW board member, chair of our diversity committee, and I appreciate you raising what I think is an important issue for the media industry and SABEW as an institution. Diversity is an issue that has hit newspapers particularly hard, but it affects the entire media and corporate landscape.
  I also was troubled by the recent ASNE census count that showed minority representation in U.S. newsrooms falling last year, while the numbers basically remained stagnant for the past decade. Meanwhile the overall employment numbers rose slightly, with minority numbers plunging for a third year. It's a huge issue for newspapers and also for large media organizations like Reuters, where I work as an editor.
  One of the reasons I ran for re-election on the board this year was to promote diversity issues, and also to maintain greater diversity on our board. We've had a long-standing committee to address these issues, and I hope more members from NABJ will consider business journalism as a concentration, and SABEW as an association to get important financial training and networking opportunities with some of the best journalists in the business. We also have established the Benita Newton Fund, which SABEW used to fund a pair of Indianapolis conference travel grants for minorities this year.
  Thanks again for your thoughtful article.
  Best regards,
  Walden Siew
  @waldensiew