Five Syracuse University alumni spoke about their personal experiences as people of color in the media industry for the final panel of the Race and the Media Symposium.

The alumni, recent graduates of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, detailed their struggles with being people of color in the newsroom, microaggressions and self-doubt at the start of their careers at the Wednesday panel.

Jim Shahin, an associate professor in the magazine, news and digital journalism department, took several minutes to honor Newhouse Dean Lorraine Branham, who died Tuesday. Branham initiated the symposium this year, he said.

“I think it’s a living testament to Dean Branham, who had a deep commitment to diversity,” Shahin said.

Washingtonian reporter Elliot Williams said the responsibility of changing culture in newsrooms should not fall on the shoulders of journalists of color. Both Washington, D.C. and the Washingtonian have complicated histories with the city’s black residents, who comprise nearly half of the city’s population, he said. He was one of very few black staffers in the magazine’s history.

“I didn’t move to D.C. to become the Jackie Robinson of journalism,” Williams said.

His fear of messing up also affected his early career. Williams feared if he was too honest, he would be known as a brash black man, or that he would write too much about black city residents and be branded as “that black writer.” His work now often features black Washingtonians, which helped expand the magazine’s audience beyond its traditionally white, affluent readers.

Anna Henderson | Digital Design Editor

“I realized this career path is bigger than me,” Lewis said.

She encouraged students to not let doubts or frustration hold them back in the media industry.

“Do not let your fears reduce you to smaller than what you can become,” Williams said.

Brooke Lewis, reporter for the Houston Chronicle, told the story of a piece she did on a convicted man who turned his life around. She met him while he was still incarcerated, reported on him following his release and wrote about his funeral when he was killed during a hurricane.

“I realized this career path is bigger than me,” Lewis said.

She encouraged students to not let doubts or frustration hold them back in the media industry.

Daniel Taroy, a 2013 graduate, said he was shocked when he came to SU and saw the stark difference in diversity on the campus and his hometown in Orange County, California. He said he had few white friends while growing up, and he saw the most white people he’d ever seen at SU. It was at that point that he realized what his career in media would most likely look like.

He now works at Vanity Fair, which he said has transformed under the leadership of Radhika Jones. Under former Editor-in-chief Graydon Carter, the magazine had a very white, old-Hollywood vibe, Taroy said. Jones has hired more women and people of color, and the magazine probably would not have had that 10 years ago.

“Progress, though it’s coming, does move a little bit slowly,” Taroy said.

Anna Henderson | Digital Design Editor

Jourdan Bennett-Begaye, another panelist, is a reporter for Indian Country Today, a news outlet reporting on indigenous people throughout the United States. While she was reporting at other organizations, she said she had to fight to get indigenous stories told. It was only when she was reporting on protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline — which runs through the Standing Rock Sioux’s burial grounds and threatened drinking water sources — that editors paid attention.

Indigenous people represent only 0.2% of media employees, she said.

Bennett-Begaye said indigenous people want to be represented as people, not 19th century caricatures. She added that she was called a racial slur when walking yesterday.

“I can’t believe it’s 2019 and slurs like that are being called,” Bennett-Begaye said.

Published on April 3, 2019 at 11:08 pm

Contact Kennedy: krose100@syr.edu | @KennedyRose001