The National Association of Black Journalists, which includes a business journalism task force, recently celebrated its 50th anniversary. In its honor, today let’s discuss the impact of Black journalists both in the organizations they work for and the communities they cover.
Representation
A Pew Research survey from 2023 found that Black Americans are far more likely to say news about Black people is negative rather than positive. As one focus group participant told the researchers, “There’s not a lot of African American coverage unless it’s February or it’s criminal.” Survey participants noted that the problem stems from a variety of reasons, including the speed of the news cycle, outlets pushing agendas, uninformed journalists, and a lack of Black staff writers.
In 2020, Gannett, the parent company of more than 260 local news outlets, published its workforce demographics alongside an intention to “make its workforce as diverse as the country by 2025,” as the reports clearly showed that many of the newsrooms were significantly whiter than the communities they served. Fast forward to 2025: Gannett announced that it would “no longer publish workforce demographic metrics or sustainability and inclusion reports.”
Media’s reverse course on business strategy
Since the start of the second Trump Administration last year, many businesses, including news organizations, have paused or pulled back their diversity efforts altogether. For media outlets such as NBC, which had previously committed to producing robust and comprehensive coverage of underrepresented groups, this pullback resulted in laying off the very teams it had created to fulfill those promises. Not only does this impact the stories that are told, it also impacts the journalists hired for that coverage, who are disproportionately people of color.
Many of the recent decisions to cut teams, lay off employees, or end diversity efforts have been framed as simple business decisions, and in a way, they are – but not necessarily for the good of the product or the consumer. After all, it was only in 2022 that NBC proudly announced its diversity efforts were due to “an abundance of diverse talent with amazing stories to tell” and that these new initiatives create a “more seamless pathway for meaningful and lasting change at our company.”
As some experts have noted, “the rollback of newsroom investment in [diversity, equity, and inclusion] suggests they were never fully committed in the first place.” The question is: why not? A business case for diversity can certainly be made.
In 2021, the World Economic Forum published an article by the president and CEO of Internews stating that diverse newsrooms and coverage could not only build more trust with audiences, it could make organizations more profitable. Through his experience, diversity is “imperative for the longevity of any media platform” as newer user-generated platforms are doing a better job at attracting new audiences, especially younger generations who want “content that reflects their experiences and perspectives.”
Black-owned media outlets
Traditional newsrooms have been shrinking for decades as organizations merge and consolidate coverage, which has especially hurt local reporting. However, despite the shrinking pool of journalists and outlets, smaller outlets have been emerging to cover some of the gaps, often by the same people whose stories aren’t being told by traditional outlets.
Additionally, organizational networks have been growing to help smaller outlets expand their coverage to more readers and allow more opportunities for diverse journalists. For example, Black Public Media – originally founded as the National Black Programming Consortium in 1979 – hosts events and training with the mission to support and distribute content about the “global Black experience.” Similarly, Word in Black is a national newsroom and research lab that connects Black publishers across the country to inform and amplify those community voices. These outlets follow a long tradition of Black press in the United States that has “powered political action and lifted spirits.”
