Recognizing diversity or the lack thereof

On Tuesday, we made a trip to KOMU, the University of Missouri TV station and NBC affiliate.

Overall, it was an informative and fun trip, but there was one block of the show that made me uncomfortable.

There was a segment on a group that was trying to organize enough funds so the children of people in jail could visit their parents.

Throughout the tour, we heard about diversity, but in this piece I watched the complete opposite. There were three African-Americans advocating for the organization and one white Republican who spoke against it.

My issue is that African-Americans are not the only people who are incarcerated.

The person who did the reporting didn’t recognize this flaw, which I thought was the fundamental problem with the video. With this kind of story, I think there should have been a conversation about the kind of people and shots they were going to use. Someone should have reviewed that and caught it before it aired.

After watching the video, I felt like it promoted stereotypes about African-Americans that, for the majority, are not true.

I was happy someone else recognized this and spoke up about the issue as well. To me that’s a positive sign when someone with power in the situation can put themselves in the place of the viewers and say, ‘"What we did was insensitive or it needs to done differently so it doesn’t offend people.’"

That’s why programs such as the Sports Journalism Institute and the Association for Women in Sports Media exist. They are preparing minorities and women to sit at the table, so when a situation like this comes up, someone is there to say, ‘"let’s rethink this," or "how might this affect our audience?"

The more diversity you have at the table the better it is for all of us and our industry. 

_ Rhiannon Walker