Representation in media has increasingly become a hot-button issue. Marginalized groups, including women, people of color, the LGBT+ community, have for many years been rarely seen and often not heard in news coverage. With local news in crisis across the United States and news deserts growing by the day, issues of representation remain as prevalent as at the industry’s peak, when local news often failed to reflect needs and voices of all the people in a locality. News ownership and leadership, even when well-intentioned and thoughtful, was far from diverse. What interested largely white, male owners and editors defined what made “news.”
How do we change that calculus, broaden our understanding of what "news" is, and truly write for and about the myriad communities across the country?