The Maynard Institute for Journalism Education is a nonprofit organization dedicated to training journalists of color in order to provide accurate representation of minorities in the news media. The Maynard Institute is the nation’s oldest organization dedicated to helping the news media reflect the nation's diversity in staffing, content and business operations. Although the Maynard Institute emphasizes training those of color, all programs are open to journalists of all races. Since this is a non-profit site, the Maynard Institute relies on donations from individuals, corporations and foundations.
When you first enter the site you are directed to a page filled with columns that some staffers have written. These columns are discussing the media’s representation of minorities. One example is a column on covering the Tiger Woods incident. It says that instead of relying on the facts, the story became full of gossip and celebrity. There are tabs on the home page that will narrow down the type of column you may want to read. There are features, cultural and diversity columns as well as “the next America”- a tab dedicated to talking about the future of diversity and the media. On the right side of the page there is a “diversity headlines” news feed that allows you to click on a link and be taken directly to a news story. At the top of the page there is a resources tab that has “industry studies”, “organizations”, “diversity guide”, “diversity game”, and “minorities in the media”. These resources are filled with interactive timelines and quizzes, as well as lists of links and journalists resource sites.
I think that this site can help journalists by informing them of how they can report on minorities better and more consciously. It provides journalists with a great amount of links to articles about media and how they report on diversity and opinions from Maynard Institute staff that has dedicated their lives to train journalists of color on portraying minorities in the news accurately. Through the use of interactive information, links and resources this site allows journalists to respond to the challenges of reporting on minorities.
On a scale of 1 to 5 I would rate this site a 3. I was very confused when I first opened the web page. It didn’t tell me what it was about or what their mission or goal was right off the bat. I had to do some major digging to fins out that it was dedicated to training journalists of color how to portray minorities in the media. Despite the confusion, I think this site does provide journalists with copious amounts of information. This would be a great resource to spend a lot of time on before covering minorities so that you could really try and portray them in an accurate way.
I was not aware of that the Maynard Institute was the oldest institution for minority journalists. I learned something new. However, I wonder if there are any White people on staff that can help those in larger media outlets with tips and information on how to report on minority stories. And I wonder how many minorities, Asians, Hispanics, Indians and so forth, are a part of the Maynard Institute. This site is helpful in that it gives resources about how to approach telling a story involving minorities, as well as showing how the media, at times, misrepresents minorities, but I think the site could be better by displaying well-written stories involving minorities, they are out there, as well as maybe break a story down in constituent parts on how to make a minority story better, such as the Tiger Woods case, although I'm not sure if that's a good example. The best example that comes to my mind about the importance of diversity in the newsroom is Hurricane Katrina.
ReplyDeleteIt's great that the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education provides resources for and about African Americans in media. Minorities such as these can be brushed off by the mass public when we are not careful, its important they have a watchdog of sorts to keep it honest. When African Americans like Tiger Woods are portrayed in the media it is necessary to have an analytical perspective of the sort of coverage they receive and some decision of whether or not it is fair. However it would be beneficial it would seem if they were more forth coming with their mission on their home page; people ought to know what they're getting.
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