Reporting While Black
Image via Twitter/alexisjreports
Black journalists and journalists of color are speaking out against the racist treatment they’ve received while working in majority-white newsrooms. Alexis Johnson, a reporter at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, has become one of the most visible.
On May 31, Johnson, who is Black, shared photos of a trashed parking lot, tweeting “Horrifying scenes and aftermath from selfish LOOTERS who don’t care about this city!!!!! .... oh wait sorry. No, these are pictures from a Kenny Chesney concert tailgate. Whoops.” The following day, management told Johnson that her tweet violated the paper’s social media policy, and the next week, they removed her from all protest coverage.
The paper reprimanded several of Johnson’s co-workers who spoke out in support of her, including Michael Santiago, a Black photojournalist who was subsequently removed from protest coverage. A white, male co-worker, who had referred to an alleged looter as a “scumbag” in a tweet, was allowed to continue covering the protests. (The co-worker has since deleted the tweet and was taken off of coverage for supporting Johnson.) The paper also rewrote and reposted two stories by reporters who also tweeted in support of Johnson.
“There has been fallout and … retaliation against my fellow colleagues that have shown support for me,” Johnson told AJ+ producer Hangda Zhang in an interview. “It's a shame that I have to be in this situation when all I really want to do is just be covering the biggest civil rights movement of my generation.”
A Black journalist was sidelined over a tweet in Pittsburgh, while her white colleague was not. pic.twitter.com/3eVFc6y1Fy
— AJ+ (@ajplus) June 14, 2020
White is ‘objective,’ Black is ‘biased’
While the Post-Gazette alleged that Johnson showed bias in her tweet about Chesney concert tailgaters, Johnson refuted the idea that she was biased and other, white journalists weren’t. Everyone is born with implicit biases and tendencies based on their identity, how they grew up and the environment they grew up in, she said. And this helps her relate to the communities that she covers and communicate the nuances of the scenes she reports on. Johnson hopes that her experience makes newsrooms examine their definitions of objectivity and the subjective nature of all reporting. “White journalists [are] just called journalists … but there’s this otherness that goes on when we’re talking about communities of color,” Johnson said.
Johnson’s newspaper guild is demanding an apology, reinstatements and resignations
Johnson said the Post-Gazette’s social media guidelines were never agreed to by their news guild, and that the two articles about the protests were changed after union members supported her on Twitter.
On June 10, the paper’s executive editor, Keith Burris, said that Johnson, Santiago and nearly 80 reporters supporting Johnson on Twitter were barred from protest coverage for showing bias. In response, Johnson called Burris’ statement dehumanizing. The news guild is demanding a public apology and the return of Johnson and the other reporters and photographers to the protest beat.
“We hope that they can learn from this mistake,” Johnson said. “But we're constantly the ones trying to offer that olive branch, and we haven't seen it reciprocated to us yet.”
Following Johnson’s interview with AJ+, Jon Schleuss, the international president of the NewsGuild, issued a statement on June 12 demanding that Burris and managing editor Karen Kane resign.
Tying the hands of reporters hurts readers
“While I'm being taken off protest coverage, and the rest of my colleagues are being taken off protest coverage, [our readers are] that much less informed,” she said. “It's a shame. It's such a trickle-down effect all across the board.”
You might also enjoy
