REJ StoryLetter: We’ve Been Here All Along

Dear readers, 

As Borealis reflected with our entire community last week, we know that many of us are breathing deeper, sleeping better, and feeling more optimistic about our future. With the work of the election behind us, we have a clearer view of the direction that we are moving in. For that, the Racial Equity in Journalism Fund is grateful to the journalists who helped inform BIPOC and young voters in communities across the country.

-Tracie Powell, REJ Fund Program Officer

A new partnership with The American Press Institute

The Racial Equity in Journalism (REJ) Fund at Borealis Philanthropy announces a new partnership with the American Press Institute (API) to help news organizations led by and for people of color become more sustainable by serving niche audiences in their communities.

In today’s media climate especially, journalists need to know who their readers, viewers, and listeners are in order to get them the information and stories they need. To get at just that, the REJ-API partnership will provide support over the next year through a new Listening & Sustainability Lab. Cohort participants will receive ongoing support around deeper listening and audience engagement, both from experts and mentors in the field as well as through a community of practice with peers. With a community-centered approach where publishers can experiment and innovate out loud, the entire field of publishers of color are poised to benefit from shared insights beyond the cohort. 

As REJ program officer Tracie Powell shared in the API press release:

“Publishers of color already tend to have deep relationships with their communities and audiences. But it’s just as important for them to know who they might be missing. We hope this initiative will support publishers in gaining a deeper understanding of who they’re reaching and who they aren’t. The lessons we hope to learn from this initiative will not only better inform the news organizations, but the entire journalism ecosystem.”

We’ve been here all along 

‘Reporters of Color are Declaring Independence’

Media outlets led by and for people of color have a superpower: they prioritize DEI in their staff and coverage to change an industry still stuck in the past. Unlike the fractured relationships many white- and dominant-led news organizations have with their audiences,  news organizations led by people of color are often centered on trust with their readers. If funders want to have a real impact with underserved and long-ignored communities, they may want to consider investing in news organizations that are owned and led by those communities, where the journey of relationship-building is a lot shorter and has a likelihood of a much higher ROI.

In Washington Monthly, Anne Kim writes about the challenges that reporters and editors of color continue to face while doing their vital work: lack of connections and capital, unpaid internships, diversity fellowships instead of hiring, tokenism — the list goes on. Kim describes a new crop of outlets that are working to make journalism more diverse, featuring PushBlack, Sahan Journal, MLK50, and the whole REJ program. Here’s what Tracie Powell of REJ Fund had to say:

“We have been begging, pleading, crying, yelling at the top of our lungs for news organizations to reflect the communities they say they serve. And those organizations made it very, very clear that they are not serving the Black and brown people in their communities . . . At what point do you say, let’s stop? At what point do you try something different?”