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Race and media in America

National

Media Trends

Axios Media Trends

Latino

Axios Latino

Efforts to bring more diversity to media are no longer just a moral mission but a business imperative driven by the transformation of  U.S. demographics. 

Why it matters:  If newsrooms and studios were more inclusive, they could better address falsehoods in a society blighted by racial stereotyping, misinformation and distrust in institutions. 

Driving the news: A new study from The Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN) and National Research Group finds that a vast majority of Black women are looking for more complex portrayals of themselves onscreen. 

Black women, the study found, overwhelmingly feel as though they are depicted via stories about Black pain and struggle, instead of joy and success.

If there was more diversity behind the scenes among editors, writers and stylists, Black women say they would be better represented onscreen, said Cindi Smith, VP of diversity, equity & inclusion at National Research Group.

"We want to make sure that on the business aspect of things, we are understanding what matters to our consumers," said Scott Garner, head of research at OWN. 

In newsrooms, the urgency to address shortcomings around equity in coverage has sent hiring managers scrambling to add editorial positions and products that specialize in coverage of race.  

All of the major broadcast news networks now have divisions dedicated to covering issues around race. Several major media companies have replaced top editors with people of color in the past year. 

In Hollywood, the business imperative has driven studios and governing bodies such as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to make some changes, although data shows the industry has a long way to go.  

Following the nationwide Black Lives Matters protests last year, the academy said films vying for Oscars would need to hit new diversity requirements. 

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association added six Black members last month following a backlash over the lack of diversity in its ranks.

A McKinsey study earlier this year found that the entertainment industry would bring in an additional $10 billion if it were to address racial inequities in  film and TV.

Yes, but: Despite increased awareness of the issue, there's no clear direction in terms of execution to reach racial and gender parity in the media. 

While dozens of newsrooms have introduced new diversity benchmarks in the past year, few have committed to frequent updates on how they're tracking.

Ad agencies and corporations responsible for allocating billions of marketing dollars that sustain media companies have begun making pledges to support more Black-owned media, but measuring media buys can be challenging, given that smaller upstarts are often undercounted by big vendors. 

By the numbers: Gonzalo Del Fa, president of the multicultural division at GroupM, one of the largest global ad agencies, told Axios the company estimates that less than .05% of all media buys goes to minority-owned media. GroupM now has 50 clients that have pledged to spend at least 2%. 

The past year has highlighted the systemic barriers that keep legacy news and entertainment media companies from reaching diversity benchmarks as quickly as more nimble startups. 

Newsrooms around the country are unionizing at a record pace, often citing a lack of diversity initiatives from corporate managers. But for years unions at legacy companies protected senior-level staff, who tended to be white, while newer Black and Latino employees' jobs were less secure. 

The bottom line: Media companies can no longer ignore the issue of diversity.

The U.S. Census Bureau said in August the 2020 census found the nation's population identified as more multiracial and diverse than ever before. That was driven by Latino growth and more options for identification.

Yet, just 5% of lead actors in films and 2.9% in all new and returning television and streaming shows were Latino in 2020, according to a report from the nonprofit research firm Latino Donor Collaborative. Meanwhile, Latinos bought nearly 30% of tickets sold.

1. Our warped reality

Deep Dive: Hard Truths - Media

Efforts to bring more diversity to media are no longer just a moral mission but a business imperative driven by the transformation of U.S. demographics. Why it matters: If newsrooms and studios were more inclusive, they could better address falsehoods in a society blighted by racial stereotyping, misinformation and distrust in institutions.

2024 will be an election year like no other, as President Biden seeks re-election amid economic uncertainty, two wars and questions about his age. His likely foe, former President Trump, faces felony charges and vows revenge on his political enemies. Meanwhile, Americans generally are dissatisfied with those choices and are divided over immigration, race, education and more.

Politics & Policy

Top stories & latest news on the Federal Reserve, real-time data, plus the biggest shifts happening in the U.S. and global economy.

Economy

After a record economic expansion, the coronavirus pandemic sent the U.S. economy into a recession as unemployment soared to staggering heights. The country now faces urgent questions about how much stimulus is needed for reeling consumers and businesses, and what a recovery might look like.

Economy & Business

Black and Latino media organizations

Data: Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY; Note: Partial list based on CUNY's State of Latino News Media report (2019) and State of Black Media report (2020). Map: Sara Wise/Axios

Ethnic news outlets have been filling a void in local news, and serving up coverage that seeks to rectify journalistic bias in story selection and how news is framed.

Why it matters: The spread of "news deserts" — areas where local newspapers have folded and communities have no coverage — has endangered the critical role the press plays in disseminating accurate news and empowering the public in a democracy.

Many issues have caused news deserts, including the economic collapse of newspapers and a lack of digital access to online news, says Penelope Muse Abernathy, visiting professor at Northwestern Medill School of Journalism.

But the problem is not just in lack of coverage of certain regions but of entire communities of people and neighborhoods that have been ignored or only reported on when something (usually bad) happens there, says Mukhtar M. Ibrahim, editor and executive director of the Sahan Journal.

Systemic racism has played a role in the past, with prominent news organizations controlling the narrative, says Cheryl Thompson-Morton, director of CUNY's Black Media Initiative.

Some news organizations simply refused to cover most of the civil rights movement or didn't run that news on the front page — so many readers didn't know what was happening.

Others had a more direct influence in fomenting racist beliefs. In a 2020 apology, the L.A. Times wrote that in its first 80 years, it was an "institution deeply rooted in white supremacy and committed to promoting the interests of the city’s industrialists and landowners."

The editorial listed several examples, including a 1981 story that "reinforced pernicious stereotypes that Black and Latino Angelenos were thieves, rapists and killers."

Smaller, ethnic news publishers began to pop up in the 1800s that threatened the status quo. They were confronted by a sometimes hostile government levying sedition charges or granting only white men an FCC license to broadcast news, Thompson-Morton says. 

They also faced violent backlash, as seen in the burning of The Daily Record and the killing of African Americans in the 1898 Wilmington Massacre — the truth of which remained hidden for decades.

Since the killing of George Floyd, there's been a greater movement toward racial reckoning (as seen in apologies from the L.A. Times and the Kansas City Star) and an effort to increase the diversity of newsrooms and editorial leadership. 

But, mainstream media can "only go so far" in describing the nuances of what's happening in communities of color, Thompson-Morton says.

What's happening now: Small, often digital, upstarts that cater to neglected communities are growing, such as Ibrahim's Sahan Journal, which launched in 2019.

Ten Black newspapers announced in September they would create Word In Black, a platform to amplify the Black experience by reporting and sharing stories. There are nearly 300 news outlets that primarily serve Black communities across the diaspora in the U.S., per CUNY.

Indian Country Today, an online news publication and daily broadcaster covering tribes and Indigenous peoples, changed ownership in March from the National Congress of American Indians to a new independent nonprofit. There are an estimated 400 Indigenous news outlets in North America.

Two media giants — Telemundo and Univision — and others have recently increased their investment in news for Spanish speakers in their streaming operations. There are at least 624 Latino media outlets in the U.S. and Puerto Rico, per CUNY.

Hundreds of Asian community media outlets serving diverse communities played a significant role in informing the Asian community during the pandemic and the wave of anti-Asian hate incidents.

Of note: CUNY is developing an Asian Media Initiative, with hopes to launch next year. Axios plans to update the map if that data becomes available.

What's next: The challenge faced by ethnic media outlets is mainly in funding and capacity, Thompson-Morton says. "Community media needs and deserves support."

2. Ethnic media outlets sprout up in U.S. "news deserts"

Legacy news outlets have been pushed to reckon with systemic racism in the industry.

Ethnic news outlets have been filling a void in local news, and serving up coverage that seeks to rectify journalistic bias in story selection and how news is framed.Why it matters: The spread of &quot;<a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text="news deserts" data-vars-click-url="https://www.usnewsdeserts.com/" data-vars-content-id="cb09cd22-e78f-42fc-909f-5983b8cf3b45" data-vars-headline="Ethnic media outlets sprout up in U.S. &quot;news deserts&quot;" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://www.usnewsdeserts.com/" target="_blank">news deserts</a>&quot; — areas where local newspapers have folded and communities have no coverage — has endangered the critical role the press plays in disseminating accurate news and empowering the public in a democracy.

Stock photos surround us in digital and real life — but advertisers, stock image companies and consumers know they have a diversity problem. 

Why it matters: Stock photography forms the little-noticed backdrop to our lives, and has the power to reinforce or dismantle our implicit racial biases. 

The big picture: Brands know representation and racial diversity matters, especially after 2020’s Black Lives Matter protests. 

Shutterstock’s 2021 global study of over 2,700 marketers found “65% of marketers agree racial and ethnic diversity is an important factor when targeting campaign audiences.”

Yet almost half of those surveyed also said “it can be difficult to reflect their brand with racial and ethnic diversity visually.”

How it works: Axios, like other media companies, relies on stock imagery to create lead visuals for stories. Stock photos form the building blocks of our photo composites and collages. 

When choosing stock photos for illustrations, I also select who’s depicted as incarcerated, who’s a student, who’s on strike and who’s a doctor. When white people dominate search results, it’s harder to make illustrations that fairly represent our multiracial reality.

At times, I’ve sifted through pages of white people before finding a suitable photo of a person of color. 

iStock’s search results for “hand isolated”.

iStock’s search results for "hand isolated." Though some token people of color appear, most photos show white people.

So why are the results so white? One factor: The more customers search for racial stereotypes, the more likely those images will keep rising to the top. 

What they're saying: Andrea Gagliano, Getty Images’ head of data science, tells Axios that iStock’s algorithms determining first page search results are a combination of keyword tags, popularity and engagement.

“If you only rely on engagement and popularity, you’re going to skew towards white people.... Customer behavior is beginning to change, so we should see less of that overtime. But we still have that historical bias,” Gagliano says. 

To create more balanced searches, iStock (which is owned by Getty Images) adds a secondary algorithm that “tries to match a particular distribution of ethnicities [that better] reflect the society,” she adds. 

What to watch: Stock image companies are creating new libraries and filters to help address the issue.

Getty has curated several image libraries highlighting diversity across race, ethnicity, gender, ability and age in the Lean In, Show Us, Disrupt Aging, Disability and Nosotros collections.

Shutterstock organized Diversity and Offset Diversity libraries. 

Adobe Stock partnered with Diversity Photos to make the Creative Flame collection and created Adobe Stock Advocates to support photographers from “underrepresented communities,” including through a $500,000 Artist Development Fund.

Ethnicity filters are another possible solution. iStock created ethnicity filters in 2019, and now Shutterstock offers them as well. 

iStock has written a guide and created videos that show users how to find racially diverse photos. 

Adobe Stock’s head of content, Sarah Casillas, says they are “actively working on providing an ethnicity filter to our customers.”

Between the lines: The ethnicity categories chosen by each company reflect the different racial biases in mainstream culture, similar to the evolution of racial categories in the U.S. Census. 

Adding new libraries and filter options also doesn’t change the overwhelming whiteness of unfiltered searches, as Professor Fernanda Carrera noted in her 2020 study of racism and sexism in stock image banks. 

What’s next: Black and brown creators have launched their own stock image sites that showcase racial diversity, including: CreateHER Stock (focused on Black women), Mocha Stock, Nappy, NativeStock Pictures,  Pixels in Colour and Tonl. 

The bottom line: Though every stock photo conveys a narrative about race, class and gender, viewers may scroll or walk past the image without a second glance, never realizing how much these pictures influence our viewpoints.

3. How stock images can reinforce racism

Stock photography has the power to reinforce or dismantle racial biases.

Illustrated collage of white hands with cut out eyes.

Stock photos surround us in digital and real life — but advertisers, stock image companies and consumers know they have a diversity problem. Why it matters: Stock photography forms the little-noticed backdrop to our lives, and has the power to reinforce or dismantle our implicit racial biases.

San Francisco

Axios San Francisco

Percentage of newsroom employees that are people of color

Data: RTDNA and ASNE; Note: ASNE stopped conducting surveys after 2018 due to low participation; Chart: Thomas Oide/Axios 

After covering the news about America's racial justice movement in the summer of 2020, many newsrooms looked in the mirror and faced a reckoning of their own.

Why it matters: The people covering the news have a tremendous impact on the information Americans consume. Newsrooms can't build trust and news companies can't build a business if they don't understand the communities they cover.

By the numbers:  The 2020 census found that for the first time ever, the U.S. saw an overall decline in the non-Hispanic white population, which now makes up 57.8% of the country.

Yet newsroom employees are still more likely to be white and male compared to U.S. workers overall, according to Pew Research Center.

White people accounted for 77.4% of U.S. news organizations that responded to the American Society of News Editors 2018 diversity survey.

73.3% of the TV news workforce and 84.6% of radio newsrooms are white, per Radio Television Digital News Association's 2020 report. 93% of TV general managers and 93% of radio news directors are white.

For the record, 68% of Axios staff are white.

Improving racial representation in newsrooms doesn't necessarily mean coverage will reflect the communities they serve. But it's a start, Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) told Axios.

Castro has been putting public pressure on media outlets and Hollywood to hire more diverse staff.

"Latinos are 1 in 5 Americans, yet we're nearly invisible in the image-defining and narrative-creating institutions of American society, particularly Hollywood. Representation matters because it directly contributes to more accurate and authentic portrayals," Castro told Axios.

Though underrepresentation persists, news media companies are unable to even measure its severity. 

In 2019, the American Society of News Editors (now known as the News Leaders Association) suspended its annual newsroom diversity survey — one it started in the mid-1970s — after participation dwindled to a historic low of 17%. 

The organization decided to revise its approach in the hope of ensuring higher participation rates. 

The big picture: In the last few years, the industry has seen journalists of color leave establishment newsrooms to pursue projects that focus on their own communities.

Vox's editor-in-chief Lauren Williams left her post in 2020 to launch Capital B, a news nonprofit serving Black communities, with Akoto Ofori-Atta, former managing editor of gun violence news organization The Trace.

S. Mitra Kalita left CNN to launch URL Media with WURD Radio CEO Sara Lomax-Reese in January. URL Media describes itself as a "decentralized, multi-platform network of high-performing Black and Brown media organizations." 

"We know it can be glacially slow if you do work within the system," said Snigdha Sur, who founded The Juggernaut which focuses on South Asian communities, after working in media consulting. Frustrated with the slow rate of change, she launched her own hub. "When things start happening on the outside, people start changing from the inside." 

What to watch: The News Leaders Association wants to hold newsrooms accountable for improving diversity among their staff. The board is discussing partnering with foundations and awards organizations to require participation in its survey when applying for journalism prizes. 

4. Newsrooms reckon with their own story on race

After covering the news about America&#x27;s racial justice movement in the summer of 2020, many newsrooms looked in the mirror and faced a reckoning of their own.Why it matters: The people covering the news have a tremendous impact on the information Americans consume. Newsrooms can&#x27;t build trust and news companies can&#x27;t build a business if they don&#x27;t understand the communities they cover.

7. Diversity in children's programming lags, too