no 👏 more 👏 pipeline 👏 excuses! 👏

Ok so the next time that you, an enlightened media professional concerned about our industry’s ability to offer a ~representative~ array of voices, especially voices of color, hear the excuse of “ok but like it’s the talent pool!!! it's like, the pipeline's problem!! Srry!!!!”, please proceed to conduct a swift roundhouse kick and then point them to set up a meeting with the Ida B. Wells Society, which is working on building a better pipeline between media outlets and journalists of color.

That NiemanLab article is a good refresher on the general state of racial representation in media, and why the typical excuses pretty much suck. As an accompaniment, I also recommend following that read with veteran reporter Lewis Diuguid’s Lyons Award acceptance speech — On Being A Black Journalist — published earlier this year.

Mizzou J-school grads might recognize Diuguid as the guy who spoke to us during our required cross-cultural journalism lecture — FWIW, can confirm he is v. inspiring in person — which makes ya think: if lil Missourian journo kiddos are now being required to have basic education on diversity in the media, why not the rest of us??

Like Deez Links? Forward to someone who’s still a j-school kiddo at heart.