By Aly Colon
The search for diverse stories requires journalists to go to diverse sources of information.
Sometimes that means going to diverse institutions. Sometimes that means seeking out diverse people. And sometimes it benefits us to look at places that may not seem diverse in the stereotypical way we think of diversity, but that lead us in diverse directions.
Recently, I found such an opportunity for a diverse story idea at Slashdot, which has the slogan “News for nerds. Stuff that matters.” An April 13 post by kdawson, which generated about 600 comments, noted that an anonymous reader raised an issue about African Americans and video games.
“African Americans spend more money and time playing video games than whites, yet only 2 percent of game developers are black,” the reader wrote.
The post points to two other sites with more information. One of the sites is Intelligent Gamer, which prints highlights of MTV’s Multiplayer blog featuring interviews with black gamers and their views on stereotypes in the games.
In a Multiplayer blog post, Morgan Gray, a senior producer at Crystal Dynamics, an American video game developer, said: “I am sick of playing the average white dude character. I’m just done with it. And I’m sick of playing a black stereotype.” He notes he did come across a black police officer in a game. “But as a player I want to have more experiences other than the futuristic super soldier white guy to the unlikely hero white guy.”
On the Multiplayer blog, you’ll find other people with a variety of insights about the diversity of the games and the stereotypes they see.
The real world we inhabit offers a window into just one stereotypical reality. Other worlds with other realities present their own diversity issues and opportunities for a different type of diverse story.
