About Your Voice Ohio
Your Voice Ohio is a collaborative effort by over 50 news organizations across the state, seeking to better respond to the needs and aspirations of all Ohioans through solutions-driven community engagement and community-centered reporting.
About the Race & Representation in Reporting initiative
The Race & Representation in Reporting initiative is a community-media partnership that aims to help journalists tell more accurate and complete stories about and with communities often overlooked or harmed by traditional media, and to encourage more conversation and build trust and understanding between journalists and the communities they cover.
As a part of this effort, Your Voice Ohio is organizing a workshop for media professionals across the state, where we hope to provide context and guidelines that will inform reporting and language, and encourage more conversation and understanding between journalists and the many communities they cover, contributing to more inclusive newsrooms across the state of Ohio.
To inform the development of the workshop, Your Voice Ohio is first conducting 3 listening sessions in February 2020 in Cleveland, Akron, and Columbus. Working with community partners and local news organizations, Your Voice Ohio will invite community members to discuss the current representation of racial identities in media, what is working well in the media, where the media is falling short, and the impact changed racial narratives could have.
Your Voice Ohio Social Media
Crowdsourcing Posters
Post at community gathering areas such as: Rec Centers, Libraries, Barber shops, Coffee shops, etc.
- What stories are missing from local news?
- How can Ohio media combat racial bias?
- What are you proud of in your community?
Sample Social Media Messages
- Readers: what would it sound like and look like for your community to be accurately represented in the media? Take our survey as part of our initiative with @YourVoiceOhio to support community-driven journalism that tells more accurate and complete stories: https://tinyurl.com/inclusivejournalism
- Readers: How have you been impacted by inaccurate racial narratives in media? We’re committing to telling more accurate and complete stories about and *with* our community: https://tinyurl.com/inclusivejournalism (or insert link to blog post)
- How can Ohio local media combat racial bias? We want to hear your honest thoughts about the current representation of racial communities in media, what’s working well, where we are falling short, and the impact changed racial narratives could have: https://tinyurl.com/inclusivejournalism (or insert link to blog post)
- What is a story (either from your communities or outside of them) that the media isn’t telling? Let us know: https://tinyurl.com/inclusivejournalism (or insert link to blog post)
Sample Email Outreach
Hello ____,
This is [name, title] at [partner organization]. I’m writing to let you know about a new initiative — Race & Representation in Reporting, that aims to help journalists tell more accurate and complete stories about and with communities often overlooked or harmed by traditional media, and to encourage more conversation and build trust and understanding between journalists and the communities they cover — and to personally invite you to attend a listening session or fill out this survey to share your thoughts on representation in Ohio news media.
As we work to develop this initiative, we want to ensure community voices and solutions are amplified and centered throughout the process. The mission of the survey and listening sessions are to help media professionals and media educators collaborate with each other and with communities to:
— understand the impact that racial narratives have on individuals, communities, and trust in media;
— create and champion more accurate and complete narratives in news media, individually and collectively;
— challenge and change systems that inhibit their ability to do so.
By participating in dialogues about what it takes to create more equitable journalism, your insight will inform the development of a two-day workshop in April 2020 for media professionals across the state, and new approaches to reporting and language by Ohio journalists.
We hope you will join us for this very important conversation! Your Voice Ohio values your input and is providing $40 gift cards to all participants at the completion of the listening session.
You can read more about the project, some of the people involved, and an FAQ here. If you know people who would also like to share please pass the survey and listening session information along as well!
Sincerely,
