Journalism Education in Black and White: A 50-Year Journey Toward Diversity

Abstract

The struggle for equality in journalism education for African Americans raises questions about how the government, news media, and educators worked together to realize the principles of civil rights. Certain milestones over the past 50 years can be charted through the collective scholarship of this journal’s pages. A careful look back reveals how goals of diversity were achieved or frustrated through reports on pedagogy, enrollment, technology, and trends in scholarship. Looking through the prism of Journalism & Mass Communication Educator ( JMCE) offers a telling explanation of how journalism education moved away from segregation, and how the complicated relationship between predominantly White institutions (PWIs) and Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) played a role in this journey.

Inspiring Critical Consciousness: A Case for a Decolonized Journalism Study Abroad Curriculum

“…In their analysis of scholarship published in Journalism and Mass Communication Educator, Wilkinson et al (2020) note that diversity awareness in journalism and journalism education had its roots in the aftermath of the 1968 Kerner Commission report. Diversity efforts began to take shape in the 1970s as journalism education moved away from segregation.…”

“…In the years since, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) issues have been taught and discussed to a greater degree in journalism and communication courses (Biswas & Izard, 2010, 2018; Ross & Patton, 2000). It is generally accepted that universities should continue to create new concrete plans and systems of accountability to implement serious reform to move journalism education toward equality (Wilkinson et al, 2020); there is still, however, a need for more forethought and planning to assess student learning outcomes for diversity and inclusion in curricula (Daniels, 2022).…”

Politics, Press, and the Pandemic: Analyzing the Effectiveness of a Student Journalism Project

“…Just as there are concerns about the lack of racial diversity in journalism, the academy knows that journalism education needs to be diverse. The inclusion of diversity in journalism curriculums for academic accreditation became a requirement in the early 1990s (Wilkinson et al, 2020). However, 30 years later, substantive diversity is still lacking in news pedagogy.…”