How Diversity in Media is still not a Reality

For the last two weeks in Journalism Fundamentals, we have been working on our Media Marketplace assignments.

We were assigned groups and then our groups were assigned a media corporation. My group chose to work on a different section of the project giving all four of us one section each. I chose impacts and influences.

When dissecting the impacts and influences of a company, you’d expect it to be somewhat simple, but this was a task that I found difficult.

The company we were assigned was a publishing company. The most positive aspect of this company I was intrigued by was the fact that when they first started they only chose to buy and print French material.

This is important because French is not always represented in the mainstream media.

Of course, this publishing company also has other positive qualities, which are mostly focused on their business structure.

While their business’ strong foundation is impressive, the most alarming trait of the company is their lack of diversity.

Their board is made up of people who are all Caucasian. There is one nice thing about the board, the chair is a woman. Who’s a very successful woman. She has been inducted to the Women’s Executive Network Hall of Fame.

She has also been recognized as one of Canada’s 100 most powerful women.

While I think it’s amazing that this woman has such an important part in Transcontinental’s, I think the company needs to do better (which I mentioned in my presentation).

Having a white woman on the board means nothing anymore. We need more women of colour and people of colour. In the workplace, especially in media, it’s important to see diversity and representation.

This company shows no diversity and no representation, it’s disappointing.