Mediaboss Marketing

This piece was originally published on Medium by LION Publishers. It has been republished with permission. You can learn more about LION Publishers here, and while youre there, sign up for their newsletter.

As an association, our primary role atLION Publishersis to support our members in building financially sustainable, independently owned news businesses. We believe at the core of a successful news business is listening and serving your community of readers especially those whose voices are often underrepresented in the mainstream conversation.

At LION, we believe that Black lives matter heres how some of our members are taking steps to show they do, too.

This week were highlighting 13 LION members who have taken the time to listen and uplift those voices in their communities or who have thought critically about their role in ensuring media is created by more diverse voices. Weve chosen examples that go beyond reporting on whats happening, and offer more context and analysis or introspection of a publications internal practices. All of these examples are replicable or adaptable for other news organizations, and we hope they inspire the work youre doing.

CalMattersshareda breakdown of their staff demographics based on gender and race, and also offered an analysis of salary equity across the organization and their hiring practices. CEO Neil Chase, who is a white man, writes, The most obvious challenge at CalMatters is in my mirror. The organizations top executives are white. He adds that the organizations journalists are forming committees to look at the diversity of our sources, the ways we use words and phrases and labels, and our hiring process as well.

ChalkbeatCEO Elizabeth Green said the organizationadded anti-racism to their core values, which guide our work and govern our team. Shetweeted, As professor Ibram X. Kendi has written, it is not enough to be not racist. We must be anti-racist. The idea that standing against racism by adding a line to a web page might be newsworthy or even brave is a shameful commentary. But I believe (and hope) that we can do our job better by making our values transparent and clear.

Kelsey Ryan, publisher ofThe Beacon(and LIONs communications/membership manager), and her team hosted alive chatthat answered reader questions to provide an inside look into decisions our newsroom is making in real time about covering protests around police brutality. The teamalso shared with their readersthat they were participating in a three-part webinar focused on diversity, equity and inclusion to formalize their organizations stated mission around diversity, equity and inclusion.

Publisher Mukhtar Ibrahim left his reporting job at the Minneapolis Star Tribune in early 2019 to launchSahan Journal, a publication covering the states immigrant communities. Earlier this month, CNNinterviewedMukhtar, whose publication has been covering angles that national media has missed. You see young people being really frustrated and you wonder why. Why is everyone frustrated? Why do they hate the police? Why the cursing at the police? Whats causing that? Im always more curious to learn about that than just covering the latest developments. An example? Thisstoryaboutwhyyoung Minnesota Somalis are protesting.

Project Q Atlanta is for gay men, lesbians, bixsexuals, transgender people and all of those that make up our queer village, according to theirabout page. Founder Matt Hennie hosteda live virtual conversationabout how two pieces of legislation introduced in 2019 could help address police brutality and hate crimes, and how racial justice is an LGBTQ issue.

Understand how police use news coverage to surveil black communities. Dont allow police to use you, or your coverage, to do their jobs. Thats from aguideon covering protests from the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and Racial Equity in Journalism Fund at Borealis Philanthropy. Wendi C. Thomas ofMLK50: Justice Through Journalism, said she applied these principles to our recentcoverageof a civil disobedience training that drew more than 350 people. While we know the names of the people we talked to, if participants werent comfortable using their whole name or showing their entire face, we protected their identity. Wendi alsoshared her own experienceof being surveilled by the Memphis Police Department.

Long Beach PostPublisher David Sommers created a community editorial board in response to whathe saysis his failure to build up a leadership team and corps of journalists that fully reflects the diversity of the community we cover. To accomplish that goal, hes formed a seven-person editorial board, which will include representation from his organization, though community members will hold a supermajority position. He writes, Board members will be welcomed and encouraged to write opinion columns during the year on issues and subjects in which they have a personal interest, experience or expertise. David said hes received nearly 90 applications so far, and is offering stipends to the editorial board members.

Richland Source, when approached by a black-owned barbershop, collaborated with the shop owner and other partners to launch Shop Talk, a conversation series focused on race and reconciliation in their Ohio community. Thefirst meetingwas held May 31 at a barbershop with a group of people including city employees, a sheriffs deputy, pastors, small business owners, a class of 2020 high school graduate, and a university grad student who were black and white, young and old. Publisher Jay Allred (who is on the LION board of directors) facilitated that first meeting using the 22 Questions that Complicate the Narrative framework, aguidecreated by Amanda Ripley for the Solutions Journalism Network. They hosted the second conversationlast weekand plan to continue the series.

Last summer,LAistput out a call for reader stories about race and published reader essays in response. They recentlyre-upped their calloutsaying, Our job is not to lose focus on this. We are asking for your help, both in joining the conversation and holding us accountable to keep it going. They want to continue publishing reader stories about how race and ethnicity shape their lives, so that we can all keep on talking. Because we have to.

Berkeleysidehas published two useful guides one focused on 5 things you can do to support the Black community and another updated list of Black Lives Matterdemonstrations.

The team atThe Plug, run by founder and publisher Sherrell Dorsey,trackedmore than 190 tech companies on whether they spoke up about racial injustice in response to the Black Lives Matter demonstrations, and how that squared with their total percentage of Black employees. The goal? To evaluate the companies internal commitments to supporting Black workers, Sherrell said. (P.S. If youre a LION member, dont forget toRSVP for Sherrells LION Lessonon June 25 that will emphasize best practices on diversity, equity and inclusion.)

The Devil Strippublished this page ofanti-racism resources, linked and easy to find from its homepage, in response to several readers asking what they can do to help bring about change and support our Black neighbors. Their response? One of the most important actions non-Black folks can take is to educate themselves on systemic racism and privilege. Also,Scalawags managing editor Lovey Cooper published this guide, Reckoning with white supremacy: Five fundamentals for white folks, which offers historical context and additional resources.

Read the original here:
How 13 local news publishers have responded to the Black Lives Matter demonstrations - Poynter