Microaggressions in the Newsroom put Minority Journalists at a Disadvantage

Image Credit: Anne Castro - http://annecastro.com/

While the prefix "micro" means small, microaggressions can be quite devastating for the people who're on the receiving end of them. Microaggressions are generally defined as verbal, nonverbal, and environmental slights, snubs, or insults, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative messages to target persons based solely upon their marginalized group membership.

Microaggression happens every day, especially at work, from insults, invalidation, disrespectful comments, and judgmental remarks. When it comes to working, a lot of companies sweep it under the rug to "keep the peace." Or, they feel like it's not that important. 

Microaggressions in a newsroom are particularly toxic because they are a way for the dominant culture to keep journalists of color in line at a time when it is more important than ever for the dominant culture to listen to and cultivate journalists of color. 

EXAMPLES OF NEWSROOM MICROAGGRESSIONS

Amber Ferguson is a senior video editor who has worked for the Washington Post for five years. She is an African American woman. In an interview, Ferguson told me she felt like her white manager treated women of color employees differently. "All the workers can be sitting at their desks, and the manager would turn to the Caucasian employees and say 'make sure you take a break and eat". When the manager walked past a Black employee, she would question why they were taking a break or eating." Ferguson said she felt left out, and the supervisor didn't care about her. 

JC Whittington has been a video journalist for Politico for one year. But when she attended the University of Maryland at College Park – a Predominately White Institution – she noticed the differential treatment of her sex, gender, and race. She told me about when she was applying to an arduous and very competitive internship at the University of Maryland College Park. Apart from the application, students had to get a faculty advisor to sign off on the internship because they could receive college credit and get paid. She went to her advisor to get a signature, and there was a long line outside of her advisor's office. When it was her turn, her advisor told her, "Don't be disappointed if you don't get this because I have been signing students' applications all day, and it's a very competitive internship, and there are more qualified people that are applying."

Whittington felt like her advisor was insinuating that her white students were more qualified and that she was overreaching. No advisor should talk to a student that way. It's demoralizing and disrespectful. Whittington, one of the few women of color in her cohort, said it made her feel less than a person and disrespected. If the professor did not think she was qualified, she could have said it in a more supportive way or not at all. And the professor was wrong. Whittington applied to the internship because her parents and a mentor told her that she could do it – and she got accepted.

Victoria Walker, a freelance travel reporter who lives in Brooklyn, New York, is an African American woman who has been a journalist since 2015 and a travel reporter since 2017. Walker said, "My very existence is a microaggression, outspoken in the newsroom, coworkers said, you don't smile enough on Zoom, or I come off as being unfriendly." 

THE PROBLEM IS WIDESPREAD

 Kelly Nguyen, in a 2017  Teen Vogue op-ed, wrote that "incidents like these have become so commonplace, POC sees them as an emotionally exhausting routine that seems never to stop. This is part of the "invisible plague" of microinvalidation, and is inflicted on millions of people of color by negating their experiences through everyday language." 

Alex Sujong Laughlin wrote in a January 2020 essay for the Poynter Institute about microaggressions in the newsroom:

You know the feeling: you're in a meeting — maybe with your boss, your immediate colleagues, or a client — and someone says something. It seems innocuous, but the way it hits your ear makes you feel a type of way. Maybe it's a comment about how you run a meeting or an edit note in a story. Maybe it's a joke that hit a little too close to home.

Then you spend the next day/week/month turning the comment over in your head. Did they mean it like that? Am I being too sensitive? Do I have a responsibility to say something? What will be the consequences if I do?

And, as she pointed out, speaking up about microaggression in the newsroom is difficult.

Microaggression is a serious, prevalent problem in newsrooms. In an article in Editor & Publisher, Larry Graham, the founder and executive director of The Diversity Pledge Institute, shared what he called "a small sample of what journalists of color have — and continue to — experience at newsrooms all across the country." 

His examples included: being labeled, diminished opportunity, being a victim, feeling alone and bracing yourself for the N-word.

As a POC, you can never fully prepare another POC to be called the N-word. Graham believes the N-word is still being used in the newsroom, and reporters argue about using it in a story if another source says it or even says it in a staff meeting as a form of disrespect. Graham wrote, "These microaggressions are just some of what diverse employees face every day."

Different Kinds of Microaggressions

A common form of microaggression in the newsroom is microinvalidation. According to Health. Cleveland Clinic, "lots of people will have the experience where they feel like no one is listening to them or they seem invisible in a room." 

The Health Cleveland Clinic explains other forms of microaggressions, such as microassault, microinsults, and microinvalidation. Microassaults are supposed to come off as a joke. Instead of it being a joke, it's just someone serving up a harmful stereotype on a silver platter. Micro insults are described as rude, insensitive comments, making the target audience feel as though they don't belong. Microinvalidation is inappropriately saying you have friends of their race. 

How microaggression undermines crucial diversity initiatives

Newsroom leaders have recognized that diversity is essential to their workplace and journalism, but microaggressions block progress. For instance, they put pressure on POC to fit in rather than changing the culture,[they] put POC on the defensive, and make hiring and retention more difficult.

Advice on how to handle microaggression

 Dr Kelsey Mesmer, a Journalism professor at Saint Louis University, 2022 said, "Being assertive: the uncomfortable parts call from calling out microaggression, like sexist, racist and feeling compelled-I want to interject without ruining a relationship and a difficult balance; that's where the assertiveness can be tricky".

 How to speak up about microaggressions in the newsroom explains different methods on how to bring up microaggressions. The article explains that you need a goal, it's okay to just focus on your work, how and when to speak up, and if it's too much of an emotional burden for you, then don't mend the relationship. 

When you are in a professional setting, you have to act, walk and talk the talk. You have to be on your best behavior no matter what. If you get physical, then you will be fired on the spot. As an adult, you learn how to fight using your words, but sometimes people take it too far. 

Nobody wants to ruin their relationship with their work partners, especially not with their supervisors.

WHAT NEWSROOM LEADERS SHOULD DO

Nobody wants to lose their job or get on their supervisor's bad side for speaking up. In order for a newsroom leader to create a better and more safe work environment, there should be a complaint and suggestion mailbox. Instead of employees writing their names on it, they can write their employee ID numbers. Once the supervisor reads the complaint or suggestion, then they can set up a team leader meeting to discuss the suggestions. For the complaint, the supervisor can sit the team member down, discuss the issue, and ask the team worker what they think should be done. After that conversation, the supervisor should follow up with the team member on their feelings and if anything has changed a few days later. When employees bring up a complaint, they feel as though they are not being heard. Supervisors need to take employees' concerns and suggestions seriously. 

THINGS HAVE GOTTEN BETTER SINCE BLM, BUT THERE'S A LONG WAY TO GO

The Black Lives Matter movement brought racism to center stage. It reawakened people to the presence of racism in everyday places, such as school, work, and the grocery store. Many news organizations re-devoted themselves to fighting racism in their newsrooms. But as long as microaggressions remain a common practice, they have a long way to go.

This story was originally published on The Click News and has been posted here with expressed verbal and written permission.