Women of Color in the Media

I'm definitely one to believe there isn't a lot of diversity in media newsrooms. However, I do believe people of color, especially women of color, have made decent strides and will continue to do so.

For example, one of my most admired newswomen is Ann Curry. Until the discussion about women of color in media, though, I never thought about her being a woman of color. I only thought of her based on her journalism, which I believe people begin to miss when making the media a race issue.

The Washington Press Club Foundation put together an oral history project of women in journalism, which has firsthand accounts of women making it in the journalism business and the struggles and obstacles along the way. Although women themselves have had it a little difficult, women of color in journalism tend to have a double standard and have been left feeling like tokens or used for certain minority stories.

As our book states, white viewers tended to be more open to those newswomen who are of lighter skin minorities than darker. Coming from an all-white, small, country town, I have seen this firsthand and could be the reason why I don't see Ann Curry as non-white. Broadcast journalism is more superficial, so I don't think the issue of women of color in the media is considered really outside of broadcast. Back home, the anchors on most Cincinnati news stations are white, sometimes Asian or lighter-skinned women of color. From my experience, if women of color were apparent at all, they wouldn't be prime news anchors; they would usually be reporting on issues from the scene. Channel 12 News, for example, has very few people of color, but the anchors are usually always white.

However, I do believe the news usually doesn't make the culture, it mirrors it. I don't think seeing women of color in more media outlets is based on anything other than the culture in which we live. Until our culture changes its views, news will continue to stay the way it is.