Francis - The Literacy Shed

[Nickie Koskinen]

WhenI was introduced to Media Diversity Institute (MDI) founder Milica Pesic in 2000 by Freedom Forum Europe director John Owen, the print and broadcast media were facing growing scrutiny over their lack of commitment to racial diversity.

Meeting Pesic was a breath of fresh air. We instantly bonded over our respective missions to challenge media outlets (and media literacy) to be more inclusive. Pesic and I were both women, both journalists and both minorities in Britain: Pesic, a Serbian immigrant; me, a London-born citizen of Jamaican parentage.

Both of us had helped create fledgling organisations. MDI was two years old, focused on freedom of expression, reporting diversity in the media, media democratisation and amplifying the voices of civic organisations.

Connecting with Pesic was both timely and apt as that year the Cultural Diversity Network (CDN) launched with 11 broadcast-focused organisations, including Channel 4, to address race, class, disability, religion and belief, gender and ageism inequities.

The Financial Times, Supply Management and Scunthorpe Telegraph joined in year two. All the newspapers and publications stayed with us, and we secured additional funding through sponsors from the NGO and public sectors. In three years and three rounds, over 22 journalism students were recruited to the programme as some newspapers took on two interns at a time.

After every internship, the majority of the interns were offered full time positions. Those who accepted worked at The Times, The Big Issue, Financial Times, Manchester Evening News and Nottingham Evening Post.

Over 60% of the interns went on to have a career in the media, both here and abroad, from Al Jazeera, The Mirror and Marie Claire South Africa to Community Care magazine and BBC Radio and TV. The scheme was cited as a model of good practice in the Society of Editors Diversity in the Newsroom report (2004).

While running the internship programme and fielding positive (and negative) responses from the print media and right-wing opponents, I was still a practising journalist. Within a year of being established, The Creative Collective showed what was possible with a small team, an even smaller budget and a growing ecosystem of collaborators, bolstered by a targeted media and recruitment campaign.

It was ironic that I had to secure American money to run a national print media internship programme for journalists of colour in Britain. It was also telling that our programme targeted journalism students of colour who had already beat the odds to be part of the 1% on newspaper and periodical journalism programmes, only not to transition into a newspaper career, which they paid to study for.

I kept my hand in the game as a contracted freelance broadcast and print journalist and journalism lecturer. One of the pieces I wrote for The Guardian reflected on the impact of two high profile race discrimination cases brought against the BBC.

The Journalists at Work Survey 2002 by the Journalism Training Forum, and a follow up report in 2012, commissioned by the National Council for the Training of Journalists cut through the lack of transparency for the first time.

During this time, I was delivering media training and consultancy through The Creative Collective for third sector organisations and NGOs, including the Refugee Council, MDI and Article 19. Working with journalists and editors in former communist countries in the Balkans on understanding intersectionality, the impact of hate speech, the exclusion of Roma people and recruiting women journalists was an eye-opener.

Looking like I was in my mid-20s when I was in my late-30s, there was a tendency to show more deference to the older white male media trainers. When the relevant participants were challenged on this point over social drinks at the end of the programme, lively and honest debates ensued about gender politics in their respective countries.

My understanding of why reporting diversity is vital was expanded through my work with MDI. I was exposed to other cultures in their country of origin, often at risk of government oppression. Creating workshops and facilitating civic leaders, human rights organisations, NGOs, doctors and academics in countries like Morocco, Albania, Hungary and Algeria to be media confident was humbling, exciting and life-changing.

They brought their real-life experiences, passions and traumas to the table. They relished the role play and the opportunity to meet and interview real journalists while having the media demystified. They trusted me with their stories, worldviews, and points of difference, all within a structured and compassionate space. At the end, they left with an action plan and a personalised roadmap for change.

Against this backdrop, the MA was not only timely but ahead of the curve. The curriculum reflected the intersections of gender, disability, faith and racial identity and sexual orientation, and supplied a newsroom, practice-based environment for the status quo and media norms to be challenged.

A key element of the MA, which attracted a diverse range of students (from the UK, Serbia, Egypt, Malaysia, China and Brazil), was to inspire them to transfer the learning to their coverage of ethnic minorities, migration, race and racism in their respective countries. Two of my cohort went on to secure distinctions in their Masters, and 11 years later, the MA is thriving.

Since my first interaction with MDI, the language on media diversity has changed, assisted by the proliferation of social media which continues to break stories as an alternative media platform for the global majority.

There is a considered shift away from using the acronym BAME to a multiplicity of hybrid self-definitions, as shown in this piece, including the terms black and minoritised or racialised communities. They all have a place.

We are now talking more openly about structural, systemic and interpersonal racism while racial justice and racial healing are part of the under-reported narrative of recovery and reparations as Grenfell and the Windrush Scandal remain unresolved.

The current stalemate at the BBC over its plans to significantly curtail its black radio shows after a sustained campaign in the black press, has raised fears that any diversity gains are being rolled back.

These unsettling developments remind me of a still relevant quote by media and culture academic Dr Anamik Saha from 2017, on the idea of media industry equality being advanced by sector diversity initiatives.

Using the principles of inclusive journalism, storytelling and racial justice, we aim to build sustainable models and ecosystems in different spaces, from universities and theatres to research bodies and publishers, and to develop writers, creatives and entrepreneurs of colour to be change agents.

*Joy Francis is a co-founder and executive director of Words of Colour, co-founder of Digital Women UK and the award-winning Synergi Collaborative Centre. The former print and broadcast journalist is a curator, producer, cultural strategist and longstanding activist for racial equality and cultural inclusion in literature, publishing and the media. She collaborated with the Media Diversity Institute to launch its Diversity and the Media MA at the University of Westminster in 2012. In 2016 she was appointed as the media liaison lead for the Hillsborough Inquests and in 2017 for the Camber Sands Inquests by award-winning civil rights law firm Birnberg Peirce. Joy was elected to the Royal Society of Literature as an Honorary Fellow in 2022.

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