NewsBeat

September 2022 NewsBeat 10 5 benchmarks for measuring representation and equity in local news coverage By SARAH SCHMALBACH A s local news organizations assess and analyze equity and inclusion in their culture and in their cov- erage, who are their research partners and how are they defining success? Many local newsrooms, including The Philadelphia Inquirer, are beginning to examine the effect their coverage has had on shaping narratives, causing harm and influencing conditions in communities over time, particularly BIPOC communities. The process of examination has taken many forms across local, national and global or- ganizations. They include published works such as the LA Times' editorial identifying and apologizing for racism in coverage and the Inquirer's More Perfect Union series, a special project examining the roots of sys- temic racism through institutions founded in Philadelphia. Additional aspects of exam- ination include the undertaking of content audits and source diversity audits in news- rooms and annual reports such as Reuters' inaugural diversity and inclusion report in 2021. Also, many organizations are creat- ing or expanding in-house teams focused on DEIB (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging) initiatives. At the same time, external groups are publicly suggesting additional ways that journalism organizations can hold them- selves accountable. One group, OpenNews, has called attention to how representation could show up in the journalism awards space. They publicly appealed to The Pulit- zer Prizes to require that a news organiza- tion publicly share data about staff demo- graphics to be eligible to win. It is during this critical moment of anal- ysis that publishers are also beginning to develop their own benchmarks for where they are now in terms of equity in cover- age, and how they will measure progress going forward. We'd like to add grounding to the conversation around benchmarks and defining success by sharing some of the things we've learned from our collab- oration with New Kensington Community Development Corporation, a local commu- nity group that offers services to residents and small businesses in the Fishtown, Port Richmond and Kensington neighborhoods in Philadelphia. One of our shared goals in working with NKCDC was to co-develop community-informed benchmarks for using a local news mapping tool our team built to analyze community representation in coverage through a geographic lens. The co-design process, created by Special Proj- ects Editor Ana Graciela Méndez, was set up to ensure that the data displayed on the map would not live inside a vacuum, and that insights from the tool would incorpo- rate feedback that reflected the realities of residents that live in those communities being covered. Over nine weeks, Ana guided members of the The Lenfest Local Lab @ The Inquir- er, the Inquirer's Community & Engage- ment desk, the Brown Institute for Media Innovation and NKCDC in conversations about community equity and geographic representation in Inquirer coverage. The conversations led to some initial ideas for what benchmarks for representation could look like in coverage, which organizations like The Inquirer could track and meausre against for signs of progress. We wanted to note that the conversa- tions weren't exclusively between folks at the highest level within each organiza- tion. This was intentional, because one way to make work more equitable within news organizations is to include folks on the ground and across organizations and teams to add perspective and nuance to conversations. We also want to be transparent about why we chose to approach NKCDC. We know that there are power differentials between news organizations and communi- ty-based non-profits, as well as among var- ious community non-profit organizations throughout the city. We chose to reach out to NKCDC because the lab had asked folks there for feedback on a project we were building to serve residents of West Kens- ington and Fairhill. Finally we want to emphasize that ev- ery organization and individual involved in these types of collaborations will have their different strengths, varying levels of authority and also their own unique lever- age points. We do not seek to not solve for, but rather to acknowledge those dynamics in this work. We want to call attention to the fact that sometimes the flow of power between a newsroom and a community group is part of the problem and creates inequitable conditions. The inequitable distribution of power creates conditions for extractive reporting, and the strength of a newsroom's platform puts the decisions about the timing and contents of reporting ultimately in their control. We kicked off the work by having the group read and review most of the stories written about the Kensington neighborhood by The Inquirer in the month prior, Febru- ary 2022. When we gathered to discuss the stories, many ideas and concepts relat- ed to benchmarking emerged. We spoke intentionally and at length about many aspects of articles, including headlines, deks, quotes and story topics, as well as the impact a story could have on a community after it's published, and the desire for more follow-up stories on critical community issues. Below is a list of the five benchmarks that we all felt the most commonly invested in. 1. Active verbs in headlines, elsewhere We noticed that many verbs used to de- scribe things happening in the community portrayed residents as passive recipients, rather than as active partners, and as peo- ple whose feedback is extremely relevant to an article given their lived experience in the community. Choosing active language

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