Unbias the News is a a field guide to unbiasing the newsroom and a launchpad for a new kind of journalism that looks more like the society it serves. In journalism, white, male, Western voices still dominate and are often privileged over others, which means that we are not getting the whole story, or the most accurate one. At Hostwriter, we asked journalists to tell us about the barriers they face in their field and potential ways to fix them. We received stories from colleagues around the globe.
WHY DIVERSITY MATTERS FOR JOURNALISM.
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UNBIAS THE NEWS
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Our colleagues around the globe – from Brazil to Zimbabwe, Tajikistan to the Philippines, and China to the U.S. – contributed stories that are surprising, funny and sometimes infuriating, directly addressing the challenges to making journalism more diverse.
Fighting for more diverse reporting is not a question of political correctness or patronage. It’s a question of quality. These days, journalism cannot tolerate the dramatic underrepresentation of the perspectives of women and People of Color, among others.
Audiences are clever enough to realize that most publications that claim to be objective actually do carry hidden viewpoints… By being honest with audiences about where we are coming from, publications can be transparent and will stand a better chance of being trusted and chosen as a reliable news source.
In media, we have the power with every story we publish to either affirm or deny trans people’s humanity, dignity and visibility, and this is just as true when we are writing about beauty or food or travel as it is when talking gender, sexism or reproductive justice.
By not considering the input of local journalists hired as fixers, we are often re-establishing the already existing narratives as seen by (mostly Western) dominant media, parachuted into a place they know little about.
I’m part of a distinct generation of Asian-Australians – we uphold our cultural heritage but also have inherent pride in our Australian identity. We’re educated, English-speaking and willing to engage in public debate, but the doors of inclusion have not yet been opened to us.
Just as tokenism is used to justify a non-diverse newsroom, gender washing is used to cover severe misogyny. They ask us: What do you want us to do? We say: CHANGE THE POWER DYNAMIC, not the people in power. It is not about individuals.
In the Cuban media scene, more than a struggle between two models of press, there is a struggle for the right to tell the story of a country.
Journalism is undergoing substantial change as we move from analog to networked societies … the collaborative method may bear solutions for the profession. And everything indicates the collaborative mindset is so absolutely worth the experiment. This anthology is an attempt of exactly that.
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Last week in Berlin, Unbias the News authors Wafaa Albadry, Qian Sun and Asma Abidi read from their chapters of the book and had an intimate conversation about diversity in the German media. The event took place at be’kesh, Berlin’s first “anti-café,” a warmly decorated event and co-working space in Wedding that hosts cultural, social […]
By Lidija Pisker For nine months, NewsMavens’ fact-checking squad fought false news and biased reporting against women in Europe. The project is over but the battle is far from the end. Women with an index finger longer than their ring finger are “cheaters,” according to several Ukrainian online media sites. Feminists are women “who nobody […]
Here’s a sneak preview of the contents of Unbias the News! For more information about the journalists listed here, check out the Authors page. Table of Contents Foreword Tabea Grzeszyk Watch Your Language: Why Is Multinational Coverage So Monolingual?Tanya Pampalone Big Name Isn’t Always Big NewsKolawole Talabi If It Weren’t for the Newsroom PredatorsAnuradha Sharma […]