WILL: Historically black Americans are underrepresented in decision making positions in one of the country's most important institutions, the news media, but why does it remain this way?

Is it denial in unawareness of the status quo?

Here's Vincent McCraw, president of the Detroit branch of the National Association of Black Journalists.

Unfortunately, over the years, I think it's a little of both.

I think newsrooms have been in denial for a long time.

And now when we see the culmination of these events just this year with the pandemic, the protest and some violence related to racial injustice issues around the country, and even this election now.

It's even more important that the voices of journalists, black journalists in particular, and people of color, be in these newsrooms, not only just in reporting positions, but in the news decision making positions.

WILL: Objective observation is a cornerstone of journalism.

If newsroom directors don't understand or acknowledge that if all observers are the same, and thus, what they consider to be objective is the same, then this can lead to incomplete stories or coverage that may miss the point entirely.

Many are starting to understand.

Many do understand and have understood for a long time, but then they lose their way.

What they all should be looking for and understanding is that we as black journalists and journalists of color, the life experiences, the lived experiences that they bring to a newsroom, the way they see a community, the way they cover a community.

And it doesn't mean that there's, and that's not to suggest that they'll cover it any different than any journalists would cover a community.

But when you bring your lived experiences to the job then there's a different eye.

You see something that a white journalist is not gonna see.

WILL: That difference in life experience can be seen in moments like when CNN reporter Omar Jimenez is arrested live on air.

The anchor doesn't address the fact that the police arrest people with little to no explanation regularly, an observed truth in the black community.

REPORTER: We don't know why they are being arrested.

They're not being given any explanation as far as we can hear for why they are being arrested.

We don't know why they're being handcuffed.

WILL: Or when senior writer for the Root, Michael Harriet was arrested.

REPORTER: They're asking if he's media.

He says he is.

I wasn't the only one who didn't have visible credentials.

I wasn't the only one who was filming.

The only thing that distinguished me from the other people in that area was that I was black.

And the reason that Michael and the other, they weren't surprised is because it's a part of their lived experience.

Either in their own private lives.

It may not have been them who's been arrested or harassed by police, but someone close to them, some relative.

And frankly, many of us, particularly, many of us black men have been pulled over by the police for something.

A new survey from the Knight Foundation and Gallup show 79% of Americans feel news organizations should increase diversity among their staffs to better reflect the make-up of the U.S.

population.

I spoke with Michael McCarter, a managing editor at the USA Today Network about the role of diversity standards and ethics in the media.

So this is a pretty challenging time to be a black journalist in America, not that there's an unchallenging time to be a black journalist in America, but this is a particularly challenging time.

But it's also a challenging time for newsrooms and the people who inhabit newsrooms, whether they be black or white to make decisions about how to cover African Americans, African American issues, things like police brutality and systemic racism.

I want to start with just your reaction to the way that American media is handling this moment.

Well, I don't want to paint anything with a broad brush, but I will say because everybody's handling things in their own way, just depending on what corner of the country you're in.

I will say that I am actually rather impressed that it has received the intense attention that it has, because there have been times previously where any issue like this would get tamped down simply because it got zero coverage or very minimal coverage.

Now could I say that everything has been handled fairly?

No, absolutely not.

There are some markets where it's sometimes you can see bias seep into some the coverage.

But overall I am impressed, especially because it's been, you know, 90 days, more than 90 days, and the coverage is still there.

It hasn't gone away.

It hasn't been one of those flavors of the week, and, you know, they've moved onto the next thing.

Yeah.

You and I have worked in newsrooms a long time, so we know how things work and how decisions get made, but give our viewers a sense of the way in which these issues get discussed and sort of debated in newsrooms as you're thinking about coverage, and how prominent black voices are in those discussions and in those decisions.

Well, again, it depends on what newsroom you're in and what company you work for and what part of the country you're in, because if you are fortunate enough to have a newsroom that has diversity and it's not just diversity in the room, but you have diversity in leadership ranks and decision making ranks, you can have more thoughtful conversations about how to approach the storytelling of these issues of today.

And you can also have very thoughtful and considerate conversations about, once the reporters come back, about how these stories are going to be presented.

It's very important that these things be thought through and conversations be had.

And you have to have a diverse newsroom, otherwise you run into situations where if you have people in the room that don't have the empathy, don't understand, have never been in some of the situations, don't understand what the big deal is, then the way they frame the stories takes a whole different tone.

Yeah, yeah.

I also think that there's a particular challenge here that doesn't get talked about a lot.

And that's the challenge to white reporters who don't share the experiences obviously that African American reporters might have, but the need for them to be able to learn and try to gain some of the understanding and knowledge about the African American experience that will help them cover these issues a little better.

I'm not sure that I feel like in most newsrooms that imperative reaches the highest levels of decision making.

I feel like it's a kind of lack of awareness of the need to have not just more black reporters in the room, but also to change the way that white reporters and editors deal with these things.

I don't disagree with you.

And I think there's some that would argue that's one of the challenges that we're facing right now in policing is that it's hard to look in the rear view mirror and fix anything, but if you know that your reporters have not traditionally gone to certain neighborhoods, have not traditionally asked to interview people of color, have not traditionally tried to do uplifting stories in certain communities, then when it all hits the fan you don't have an in, it is much harder for people to trust you.

It becomes something that you can't really fix overnight in the heat of the moment.

What I work hard to do is to make sure that not only do we have reporters of color in the room who can offer some insight and do have an experience that they can share with the room, but that we get our reporters that aren't traditionally in those neighborhoods out more often.

And get them, I won't say trained, but get them familiar with the neighborhoods that they don't normally visit.

You know, I won't go so far as to say that you have to have black people covering black issues, because that just wouldn't be fair.

I'm not saying that a white journalist cannot cover black issues well if they worked at it, but I would not sit here and say that I could cover women's issues fairly and accurately because I don't have that life experience.

And it's important that that's in the room and that those opportunities would be made.

I would hate for any news organization to just hire people of color so when things go bad or things go sideways or they want reporting out of a different community they can just send the black reporter.

To me that's not really helping the issue.

That's a very poorly attached band-aid.

I think it's also imperative that this is work that has to go on all the time.

The explosion of interest nationally in the BLM movement is a moment and that's important, but to be prepared for that moment you have to have been doing the work before.

And I think that's how newsrooms and reporters get caught flat footed is that we don't spend the time when there isn't a crisis or when there isn't a huge news headline getting people to understand that these issues matter.

And that you can't just jump into 'em and really understand what's going on.

We gotta be working all the time to improve.

Absolutely.

I mean, there's a proverb I use a lot that says, "The time to fix the roof is when the sun is shining."

We have to be in the neighborhoods when everything is okay and everything is fine.

We have to have conversations with people just over normal topics, normal issues.

So then when things do escalate or there are issues that are more challenging, the effort to get into the neighborhoods and have people trust and talk to you is not nearly as hard.