All talk, little action on Black representation in media, professors say

ABBY ANN RAMSEY Managing Editor

The summer of 2020 came with a racial reckoning that confronted people as they sat isolated and quarantined. In the wake of George Floyd’s death, protests filled the streets of America as people called for an end to police brutality.

It didn’t stop there though, as the conversation became about more than just police brutality. America was reevaluating race relations entirely. Black squares filled Instagram feeds, #BlackLivesMatter trended on Twitter and bookstores saw a tremendous surge in anti-racist book sales.

But behind all the conversations. how much have legacy newsrooms and entertainment companies improved in their representation of Black communities?

UT professors say there is still work to be done when it comes to covering Black issues and representing Black culture.

Guy Harrison, an assistant professor in the School of Journalism and Electronic Media, teaches Media, Diversity and Society. Much of his research has focused on diversity in the sports broadcasting industry, but he also spends time studying diversity in the entertainment and news industries.

“In 2020, and in the months after George Floyd and Breonna Taylor’s deaths, we did much more talking about it than we had before,” Harrison said. “But I don’t know that there has been a recognizable shift either in entertainment media or news media or even just politics or policy changes. I feel like all of that has just gone by the wayside.”

Amber Roessner, director of diversity, equity and inclusion and professor in the School of Journalism and Electronic Media, focuses on communication history and the history of women and minorities in the sporting and news industries.

She echoed Harrison’s claims that it’s hard to see what change has come from all of the conversations. But from her experience studying media history, she said that usually seems to be the case.

“It’s incredibly problematic,” Roessner said. “We have these watershed moments in our nation’s history and some of them are when we start to reconsider journalism and media. There’s this great talk of, ‘These are the changes that need to happen,’ and all of that is accurate and true, but then we often don’t see that change take place.”

Harrison and Roessner said that newsrooms need more diversity, but Black reporters can feel uncomfortable in spaces that have always functioned through a white lens.

“Newsrooms need to be more diverse, and in order to do that, newsrooms need to develop policies and practices that make them more welcoming places for people of color,” Harrison said.

While diversifying is an important step to take, Harrison said a lack of diversity isn’t an excuse to continue to fail communities who aren’t represented in the newsroom.

“At the same time, especially until such time as newsrooms become more diverse, the onus is on white reporters and journalists to take on more of the labor of reporting on these issues and also educating themselves before they report,” Harrison said.

In terms of educating reporters so that their work is more inclusive, Roessner pointed out that training young journalists — as well as consum- ers — is vital.

The backlash that came after news coverage of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020 is evidence that audiences must train themselves to be media literate, according to Roessner. When people say Black journalists are biased and when audiences have stubborn beliefs about objectivity, these problems with media representation persist.

“I think it’s important to recognize the lens through which you see the world and to reflect upon that and to be transparent about that,” Roessner said.