How Canadian media’s whiteness fails all of us
Radiyah Chowdhury first thought about leaving the media business when she was still in journalism school. Back in her first year classes, sitting amongst a sea of white peers, she remembers getting an introduction to the idea of “objectivity” and feeling awash in anxiety. “Objectivity, as it was presented to us seemed to be tailored for a specific type of person, one whose capacity to be dispassionate about certain issues came from a place of privilege that was unfamiliar to me,” she wrote in an essay that won this year’s Dalton Camp Award. The industry, as it is, poses a next to impossible ask for journalists of colour, wrote the assistant editor at Chatelaine. These storytellers have been tokenized and largely shut out of an industry dominated by white people. Now that the news business is being taken to task for systemic racism, will we finally see meaningful change? Or will the media cycle churn on?
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Show Notes
Radiyah Chowdhury first thought about leaving the media business when she was still in journalism school. Back in her first year classes, sitting amongst a sea of white peers, she remembers getting an introduction to the idea of “objectivity” and feeling awash in anxiety.
“Objectivity, as it was presented to us seemed to be tailored for a specific type of person, one whose capacity to be dispassionate about certain issues came from a place of privilege that was unfamiliar to me,” she wrote in an essay that won this year’s Dalton Camp Award.
The industry, as it is, poses a next to impossible ask for journalists of colour, wrote the assistant editor at Chatelaine. These storytellers have been tokenized and largely shut out of an industry dominated by white people. Now that the news business is being taken to task for systemic racism, will we finally see meaningful change? Or will the media cycle churn on?
GUEST: Radiyah Chowdhury, assistant editor at Chatelaine and winner of the 2020 Dalton Camp Award
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