Next generation of black journalists is ready
Journalists covering the protests are under attack. Police spray them with tear gas and shoot them with foam bullets. Police arrest reporters who obey orders and clearly identify themselves as media.
I stand with every journalist on the front lines, their eyes burning and throats stinging, risking arrest at any moment, but going back out day after day to witness and report the truth.
Black journalists have an added level of anguish. They have lived the systemic racism that has led us to this moment. They are angry, outraged, exhausted.
“Black men may mask their illness well, but the burden is like having a lowgrade fever all the time,” wrote Cincinnati Enquirer columnist Byron McCauley.
I stand with every angry, outraged, exhausted black journalist, covering a story where their histories and experiences are the story; where they can be retraumatized by each image, each video, each eyewitness account of police brutality or excessive force.
Watching this unfold, I wondered about the next generation of black journalists. We often say we write the first draft of history. Newsrooms must be diverse, must empower diverse voices, to get that draft right.
Are African American students more or less likely to choose journalism with all that is happening?
The Urban Journalism Workshop, a program of the Washington Association of Black Journalists, has been working for 35 years to encourage students of color to enter journalism. Each spring, a small group of high schoolers works with mentors to produce stories. Alumni have gone on to the most respected news organizations in the country. This year’s class of eight graduates Saturday.
“In some ways (this) makes me want to do it more, in some ways a little bit less,” said Alana Campbell, 18, a graduating senior at Paint Branch High School in Burtonsville, Maryland. “I’ve seen how dangerous it is nowadays.”
But she also knows the importance of journalism – and journalists of color. “They see firsthand the effects of police brutality on the community and just how systemic racism has affected the black community for hundreds of years,” she said. “It’s more personal for them, so they might look at things with (a) more knowledgeable view, I guess, or a more empathetic view.”
She went to a protest in Washington, D.C., last Friday to document what she saw. She published her photos on Instagram and was encouraged by the response. She plans on majoring in journalism at St. John’s University in Queens, New York. She’s interested in photojournalism, documentary filmmaking and investigative reporting. “I love doing it,” she said.
Kaleb Anderson, 16, a rising senior at Benjamin Banneker Academic High School in Washington, D.C., has been part of the program for three years. Recent events make him “want to do (journalism) even more.” He wants to go into sports broadcasting and said sports and news really can’t be separated.
While he has grown up watching outrage or agreement with Colin Kaepernick taking a knee, he said his dad has shared stories of Muhammad Ali (who protested the Vietnam War) and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (who boycotted the 1968 Olympics in protest of how African Americans were treated in the U.S.).
‘I’m just excited about getting my voice heard,’ Anderson said, ‘just helping people have more of an open mind and understand different viewpoints. Because I think that’s what we need now more than ever.’
Eve Ellis, 17, just finished her junior year at Duke Ellington School of the Arts in Washington, D.C., studying film, writing, screenwriting, directing and poetry.
For the workshop, she wrote about the racial disparity of coronavirus, inspired in part by her own story. Her dad died three years ago of an undiagnosed blood clot. She said medical care in her area of northeast D.C. is not as good as that in more prosperous areas of town.
“I did that story because I’ve witnessed racial disparities, affecting my family and people that I know, and I just feel, I feel (it) all the time,” she said.
She’s looking at the University of Southern California, the University of California Los Angeles and Spelman College in Atlanta.
“(We need) people to tell things the right way, because not everybody knows everything, no matter how many countries they travel to and how many people they’ve met of different races,” she said. “Sometimes you don’t experience the same things as other people, so you can’t speak for them.”
I asked each of the students what they want America to know about the next generation of black journalists. Their answers were awesome – and inspiring.
“We’ve grown up using social media, and subsequently we’ve been, in a way, more exposed to the stories of people different than us from a younger age than any other generation,” Campbell said. “I think it’s made us more informed and passionate, and more social-justice minded . ... We didn’t have to experience police injustice ourselves to see that it’s an issue that affects black people all over the country. Having access to all of this information and sources gives us a clearer picture of the problems within our country and our world.”
Ellis offered: “We find different ways to use our voice as being the generation of social media. We’re very powerful and we have a lot to say, and we’re not gonna stop until we say it all, no matter what platform it is on.”
And Anderson summed it up perfectly: “Get ready.”
And we're ready to help. Gannett Co., Inc. is the parent company of USA TODAY. The Gannett Foundation is donating $25,000 to the Washington, D.C., Urban Journalism Workshop. The donation will be used to support students with training and scholarships. There are programs nationwide. To donate or learn more about your local Urban Journalism Workshop, visit nabj.org/page/ RegionI.
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