A journalism and media environment that is more diverse and more inclusive. That’s the path we hope the media takes in 2021, and a goal that we at Chicas Poderosas are working toward.
This year, Black Lives Matter, the pandemic, protests in Latin America, and other events have sparked conversations about equality and inclusiveness. And though this debate has reached journalism, there’s a lot more to be discussed in terms of actual diversity in the media.
At Chicas Poderosas, we worked on three collaborative journalism projects in five different countries this year to tell underrepresented stories of how the pandemic affected different populations. We found that, for all the media coverage the coronavirus got, there were multiple pandemics that were not reported on. Covid-19 and the ensuing confinement meant completely different things for somebody living in a big city doing deliveries in Colombia, for people from an indigenous community in Bolivia, for a sex worker in Latin America, for trans women in the south of Argentina, for a journalist and mother in Ecuador, and for women and adolescents who menstruate in Venezuela.
The best and only way to tell these stories is by including the people who live them — those who experience these situations — in our teams. In Los Derechos no se Aíslan, the collaborative investigation we did in Argentina, we opened a call and recruited one reporter in each of the country’s 24 jurisdictions. We understood that it would be them who’d be able to tell us what was happening there, not a journalist based in the capital. The team was made up of women journalists and we made an effort to have at least 10 percent of reporters who identify as LGBTQI+. Who could be better suited to tell the stories of women and LBGTQI+ people than themselves?
In the case of the Resonar Mediathon, which we organized with UNESCO, we chose 100 people to participate in this collaborative journalism marathon to tell stories of how the pandemic affected vulnerable populations in Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela. The participants came from 39 municipalities; 11 percent identified as belonging to indigenous groups and 10 percent identified as LGBTQI+. Once again, it was those who live in these realities being the ones to report on them.
As we finally come to terms with the fact that the premise of objectivity and neutrality is obsolete, we also need to acknowledge that journalists and people who work in media are humans and that they are subjective. Though they can make an attempt to recognize their own biases, they will always be reporting from a certain point of view.
Journalists’ work is inspired, informed, and influenced by the conversations they have, the people they engage with, the things they read, and the place where they live. Their identities and realities affect how they see and understand the world. Even more, they influence what they see and what they don’t, and, of course, they shape their reporting, from the topics they cover, to the way they cover them.
That’s why promoting diversity is not about being politically correct, about filling quotas (as necessary as they might be to start being more inclusive), or about tokenism. Actual diversity is about including “others” in the conversation, about them becoming a part of us. It’s also about providing complete information with an intersectional approach, about telling more stories — about telling the whole story.
Only when we change who makes the news and sets the agenda can we start to see a more complete reality. And only then can we start pushing for actual change. Only when it’s us — all of us — doing journalism, when more voices are heard, we can be properly informed.
Chicas Poderosas is a Latin American initiative focused on advancing the work of Latin American women journalists online.
A journalism and media environment that is more diverse and more inclusive. That’s the path we hope the media takes in 2021, and a goal that we at Chicas Poderosas are working toward.
This year, Black Lives Matter, the pandemic, protests in Latin America, and other events have sparked conversations about equality and inclusiveness. And though this debate has reached journalism, there’s a lot more to be discussed in terms of actual diversity in the media.
At Chicas Poderosas, we worked on three collaborative journalism projects in five different countries this year to tell underrepresented stories of how the pandemic affected different populations. We found that, for all the media coverage the coronavirus got, there were multiple pandemics that were not reported on. Covid-19 and the ensuing confinement meant completely different things for somebody living in a big city doing deliveries in Colombia, for people from an indigenous community in Bolivia, for a sex worker in Latin America, for trans women in the south of Argentina, for a journalist and mother in Ecuador, and for women and adolescents who menstruate in Venezuela.
The best and only way to tell these stories is by including the people who live them — those who experience these situations — in our teams. In Los Derechos no se Aíslan, the collaborative investigation we did in Argentina, we opened a call and recruited one reporter in each of the country’s 24 jurisdictions. We understood that it would be them who’d be able to tell us what was happening there, not a journalist based in the capital. The team was made up of women journalists and we made an effort to have at least 10 percent of reporters who identify as LGBTQI+. Who could be better suited to tell the stories of women and LBGTQI+ people than themselves?
In the case of the Resonar Mediathon, which we organized with UNESCO, we chose 100 people to participate in this collaborative journalism marathon to tell stories of how the pandemic affected vulnerable populations in Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela. The participants came from 39 municipalities; 11 percent identified as belonging to indigenous groups and 10 percent identified as LGBTQI+. Once again, it was those who live in these realities being the ones to report on them.
As we finally come to terms with the fact that the premise of objectivity and neutrality is obsolete, we also need to acknowledge that journalists and people who work in media are humans and that they are subjective. Though they can make an attempt to recognize their own biases, they will always be reporting from a certain point of view.
Journalists’ work is inspired, informed, and influenced by the conversations they have, the people they engage with, the things they read, and the place where they live. Their identities and realities affect how they see and understand the world. Even more, they influence what they see and what they don’t, and, of course, they shape their reporting, from the topics they cover, to the way they cover them.
That’s why promoting diversity is not about being politically correct, about filling quotas (as necessary as they might be to start being more inclusive), or about tokenism. Actual diversity is about including “others” in the conversation, about them becoming a part of us. It’s also about providing complete information with an intersectional approach, about telling more stories — about telling the whole story.
Only when we change who makes the news and sets the agenda can we start to see a more complete reality. And only then can we start pushing for actual change. Only when it’s us — all of us — doing journalism, when more voices are heard, we can be properly informed.
Chicas Poderosas is a Latin American initiative focused on advancing the work of Latin American women journalists online.
Julia Angwin Show your (computational) work
David Chavern Local video finally gets momentum
Danielle C. Belton A decimated media rededicates itself to truth
Garance Franke-Ruta Rebundling content, rebuilding connections
David Skok A pandemic-prompted wave of consolidation
Sam Ford We’ll find better ways to archive our work
Shaydanay Urbani and Nancy Watzman Local collaboration is key to slowing misinformation
Charo Henríquez A new path to leadership
Nico Gendron Ask your readers to help build your products
Cindy Royal J-school grads maintain their optimism and adaptability
Victor Pickard The commercial era for local journalism is over
Gonzalo del Peon Collaborations expand from newsrooms to the business side
Imaeyen Ibanga Journalism gets unmasked
Eric Nuzum Podcasting dodged a bullet in 2020, but 2021 will be harder
Matt Skibinski Misinformation won’t stop unless we stop it
Joanne McNeil Newsrooms push back against Ivy League cronyism
Doris Truong Indigenous issues get long-overdue mainstream coverage
Candis Callison Calling it a crisis isn’t enough (if it ever was)
Talmon Joseph Smith The media rejects deficit hawkery
Rishad Patel From direct-to-consumer to direct-to-believers
Nisha Chittal The year we stop pivoting
Alicia Bell and Simon Galperin Media reparations now
Cherian George Enter the lamb warriors
Ben Werdmuller The web blooms again
Ariane Bernard Going solo is still only a path for the few
María Sánchez Díez Traffic will plummet — and it’ll be ok
C.W. Anderson Journalism changed under Trump — will it keep changing under Biden?
Matt DeRienzo Citizen truth brigades steer us back toward reality
Richard Tofel Less on politics, more on how government works (or doesn’t)
Laura E. Davis The focus turns to newsroom leaders for lasting change
A.J. Bauer The year of MAGAcal thinking
Marissa Evans Putting community trauma into context
Joshua P. Darr Legislatures will tackle the local news crisis
Brian Moritz The year sports journalism changes for good
Kawandeep Virdee Goodbye, doomscroll
Tanya Cordrey Declining trust forces publishers to claim (or disclaim) values
Jonas Kaiser Toward a wehrhafte journalism
Cory Bergman The year after a thousand earthquakes
Brandy Zadrozny Misinformation fatigue sets in
Mandy Jenkins You build trust by helping your readers
Astead W. Herndon The Trump-sized window of the media caring about race closes again
Jennifer Brandel A sneak peak at power mapping, 2073’s top innovation
Jesse Holcomb Genre erosion in nonprofit journalism
Kerri Hoffman Protecting podcasting’s open ecosystem
Samantha Ragland The year of journalists taking initiative
Jean Friedman-Rudovsky and Cassie Haynes A shift from conversation to action
Ryan Kellett The bundle gets bundled
Jody Brannon People won’t renew
Anthony Nadler Journalism struggles to find a new model of legitimacy
Benjamin Toff Beltway reporting gets normal again, for better and for worse
Kristen Muller Engaged journalism scales
Burt Herman Journalists build post-Facebook digital communities
Parker Molloy The press will risk elevating a Shadow President Trump
Julia B. Chan and Kim Bui Millennials are ready to run things
Mark Stenberg The rise of the journalist-influencer
Sara M. Watson Return of the RSS reader
M. Scott Havens Traditional pay TV will embrace the disruption
Mike Caulfield 2021’s misinformation will look a lot like 2020’s (and 2019’s, and…)
Tauhid Chappell and Mike Rispoli Defund the crime beat
Chicas Poderosas More voices mean better information
Heidi Tworek A year of news mocktails
Edward Roussel Tech companies get aggressive in local
Ray Soto The news gets spatial
Tim Carmody Spotify will make big waves in video
Ariel Zirulnick Local newsrooms question their paywalls
Christoph Mergerson Black Americans will demand more from journalism
Hossein Derakhshan Mass personalization of truth
Joni Deutsch Local arts and music make journalism more joyous
Sarah Stonbely Videoconferencing brings more geographic diversity
Marie Shanahan Journalism schools stop perpetuating the status quo
Juleyka Lantigua The download, podcasting’s metric king, gets dethroned
Kate Myers My son will join every Zoom call in our industry
Mark S. Luckie Newsrooms and streaming services get cozy
Sue Cross A global consensus around the kind of news we need to save
Megan McCarthy Readers embrace a low-information diet
J. Siguru Wahutu Journalists still wrongly think the U.S. is different
Rachel Glickhouse Journalists will be kinder to each other — and to themselves
Jeremy Gilbert Human-centered journalism
Bill Adair The future of fact-checking is all about structured data
Kevin D. Grant Parachute journalism goes away for good
Nicholas Jackson Blogging is back, but better
Mike Ananny Toward better tech journalism
Moreno Cruz Osório In Brazil, a push for pluralism
John Davidow Reflect and repent
Jim Friedlich A newspaper renaissance reached by stopping the presses
Taylor Lorenz Journalists will learn influencing isn’t easy
Whitney Phillips Facts are an insufficient response to falsehoods
Aaron Foley Diversity gains haven’t shown up in local news
Patrick Butler Covid-19 reporting has prepared us for cross-border collaboration
Jennifer Choi What have we done for you lately?
John Ketchum More journalists of color become newsroom founders
Ernie Smith Entrepreneurship on rails
Rick Berke Virtual events are here to stay
Sonali Prasad Making disaster journalism that cuts through the noise
Pia Frey Building growth through tastemakers and their communities
Michael W. Wagner Fractured democracy, fractured journalism
Andrew Ramsammy Stop being polite and start getting real
Renée Kaplan Falling in love with your subscription
Stefanie Murray and Anthony Advincula Expect to see more translations and non-English content
Sumi Aggarwal News literacy programs aren’t child’s play
Gordon Crovitz Common law will finally apply to the Internet
Nabiha Syed Newsrooms quit their toxic relationships
Zainab Khan From understanding to feeling
Jessica Clark News becomes plural
Tonya Mosley True equity means ownership
Francesco Zaffarano The year we ask the audience what it needs
John Saroff Covid sparks the growth of independent local news sites
Annie Rudd Newsrooms grow less comfortable with the “view from above”
Don Day Business first, journalism second
Zizi Papacharissi The year we rebuild the infrastructure of truth
Hadjar Benmiloud Get representative, or die trying
Steve Henn Has independent podcasting peaked?
Colleen Shalby The definition of good journalism shifts
Bo Hee Kim Newsrooms create an intentional and collaborative culture
José Zamora Walking the talk on diversity
Rachel Schallom The rise of nonprofit journalism continues
Errin Haines Let’s normalize women’s leadership
Francesca Tripodi Don’t expect breaking up Google and Facebook to solve our information woes
Marcus Mabry News orgs adapt to a post-Trump world (with Trump still in it)
Gabe Schneider Another year of empty promises on diversity
Nikki Usher Don’t expect an antitrust dividend for the media
Masuma Ahuja We’ll remember how interconnected our world is
Ashton Lattimore Remote work helps level the playing field in an insular industry
Andrew Donohue The rise of the democracy beat
Robert Hernandez Data and shame
Celeste Headlee The rise of radical newsroom transparency
Pablo Boczkowski Audiences have revolted. Will newsrooms adapt?
Logan Jaffe History as a reporting tool
Beena Raghavendran Journalism gets fused with art
Tamar Charney Public radio has a midlife crisis
Jacqué Palmer The rise of the plain-text email newsletter
John Garrett A surprisingly good year
Meredith D. Clark The year journalism starts paying reparations
Sarah Marshall The year audiences need extra cheer
Ben Collins We need to learn how to talk to (and about) accidental conspiracists
Nonny de la Pena News reaches the third dimension
Catalina Albeanu Publish less, listen more
Ståle Grut Network analysis enters the journalism toolbox
Anna Nirmala Local news orgs grasp the urgency of community roots
Chase Davis The year we look beyond The Story
Mariano Blejman It’s time to challenge autocompleted journalism
Amara Aguilar Journalism schools emphasize listening
Linda Solomon Wood Canada steps up for journalism
Rodney Gibbs Zooming beyond talking heads
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen Stop pretending publishers are a united front
Jer Thorp Fewer pixels, more cardboard
Raney Aronson-Rath To get past information divides, we need to understand them first
Alfred Hermida and Oscar Westlund The virus ups data journalism’s game
Alyssa Zeisler Holistic medicine for journalism
Natalie Meade Journalism enters rehab
AX Mina 2020 isn’t a black swan — it’s a yellow canary
Loretta Chao Open up the profession