“Reparative Journalism: The Healing Power of Storytelling” follows two newsmakers practicing transformative journalism
By: MMM Editorial Team
(December 11, 2024) – Media 2070’s and NewsVoices’ ongoing video series exploring the possibilities for reparations in newsrooms is back with another release and accompanying discussion guide. While the past videos explored reparative models and the need for reparations, the latest installment covers storytelling itself, ensuring that not only are past injustices paid for, but media and journalism as systems are transformed to protect future generations as well.
Diamond Hardiman, Reparative Journalism Program Manager, worked with Qing Saville, News Voices Program Manager, and Courtney Morrison, Creative Content Manager, on the latest video, which features Tonia Hill, an award-winning multimedia reporter at the Triibe and DaLyah Jones, a program officer at the Racial Equity in Journalism Fund at Borealis Philanthropy. In the video, the two discuss their approaches to journalism and storytelling, working with and within Black communities to ensure fair and equitable coverage.
“Since 2022, I have been researching how to apply a reparations model to the field of journalism in service of a future of media reparations,” said Hardiman. “I’ve studied global-repair movements like LANDBACK, spoken with journalists around the world about what we must prioritize to implement repair…and attended community sessions focused on addressing the harms of anti-Blackness across institutions and society. Our interviews with [Hill] and [Jones] remind us that reparative journalism is more than content and infrastructural repair; it is also a reclamation of the lineage of storytelling. It is a return to the ways that Black people and people of color have always told stories and a reminder of the sacred role journalists play in being storytellers and story keepers.”
The video comes just as dozens of major outlets have apologized for past harmful coverage. However, Hardiman and Saville say this isn’t enough and news leaders must radically commit to new ways of storytelling and covering communities.
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