Almost 10 years ago, I got the perfect assignment. An artist in St. Louis was embarking on a project where he’d be painting one piece a day depicting positive images of Black fatherhood. It was called “365 Days with Dad,” and regularly, I’d find one of artist Cbabi Bayoc’s subjects and tell the story behind that painting.
I got to tell the story of the blue dress one woman wore when she was just 3 to her father’s funeral, about the people not pictured but still present in a painting of a father and son in prayer, and the place where the painting of a father and son lost in reading would be displayed.
And once my reporting was done, I bought a painting for my husband. We are the guardians of Day 45.
Journalism and art are certainly different, but that project captured something journalists have to do better. We have to document the nuance of people’s lives and be present for the good stuff. And we have to do that year-round.
There are other examples of art showing what’s possible with journalism, too, including Tonika Johnson’s “Folded Map” project, which introduced “block twins” to each other from different sides of Chicago.
The Boston Globe’s “A Beautiful Resistance” from Jeneé Osterheldt perfectly captures what so much local news coverage is missing. It leads with this:
“We are more than police brutality and suffering. We can acknowledge injustice without being defined that way. Blackness is not a burden. Here, we tell our stories and our struggles, too, through the lens of love. We amplify the truths of Black folk and other people of color living as their fullest selves in a region, in a country, set up to keep them from doing just that. Their joy is a form of resistance.”
Yes, resources are fewer. Yes, newsrooms are smaller. But our jobs, and the work of reflecting a community, has not shrunk. Newsrooms have to hire and promote people of color. And listen to them. And trust them. And reporters, whatever the medium, have to build meaningful connections throughout the communities they cover.
Here are a few resources for that:
- Read everything from my RJI fellow fellow Melba Newsome on finding diverse sources and measuring inclusivity. She recommends:
– And this database of tribal colleges and universities.
- Spotlight PA has a diverse source database for Pennsylvania, and they’re willing to help other newsrooms build one, too.
- Asian American Journalists Association built AAJA Studio with Asian American and Pacific Islander community leaders and subject matter experts.
- The National Association of Hispanic Journalists has a Cultural Competence Handbook.
- The Association of LGBTQ Journalists has a stylebook.
- And the Native American Journalists Association has several reporting guides.
This piece originally appeared in Local Edition, our newsletter devoted to the telling stories of local journalists.
