While reporting for the Jason "Quddus" Archie profile, I ran into a problem. Students and faculty were reluctant to speak to me because I was a Golden Gater reporter.
I have been repeatedly slapped in the face by the alleged prior insufficient coverage of people of color on this campus by the Golden Gater "for the past 22 years" as one department head put it.
I ain't been here that long, so I can't speak for all that.
What I know is, in SF State's journalism department, as well as in the real world, newsrooms are notoriously white men. But this semester, ours is predominately white women; the last two editors-in-chief were white women.
According to the Center for the Integration and Improvement of Journalism (CIIJ) News Watch Unity 94 report, 45 percent of 1,515 total daily newsrooms across the country employ no ethnic journalists. Correspondingly, 92 percent of newsroom managers are white, while only 7.7 percent of newsroom managers are ethnic.
Also, according to the CIIJ, "In day-to-day news coverage, people of color are often ignored except for certain categories of stories -- notably crime, sports and entertainment..." The report even went so far as to say that people of color turn to news each day without expecting to see themselves, or people like them, in the news except for in the aforementioned areas.
I am the only African-American man on the Golden Gater staff. Our department chair, Erna Smith, is an African-American woman, and the newspaper's lead advisor, Austin-Long Scott, is a black man.
There are a few other people of color sprinkled around the department -- I'm told more than in most journalism departments across the country. But that is not saying much.
This department did see last year's class graduate 36 percent non-white students. Our department is the only one in the nation with a CIIJ and a required ethnic diversity course for journalism majors.
Peep it: When I called Oba T'Shaka to talk to him about Quddus, he was skeptical once I identified myself as a Golden Gater reporter. He told me he didn't speak to the Golden Gater because we had been coming up short on the coverage of people of color we did manage to get into the paper.
He demanded I bring clips of my previous work to prove I wasn't one of "those" Golden Gater reporters. I was insulted. I gave the brotha' his respect, after all he's Oba T'Shaka.
But don't ever condemn me for what other people have done. That is as bad as what white folks did to us in the first place.
If T'Shaka has any complaints about the coverage in the Golden Gater, he should put his money where his mouth is and come and address our class every semester. He could help change the coverage by taking a pro-active role.
But according to Long-Scott, "Several years ago I invited Oba T'Shaka to class to talk about what he thought of the coverage in the Gater. He agreed to come -- we set up a date, the class time came and he didn't show. I called him, he apologized and we set up another date and he didn't show. We talked about it again, it didn't work a third time either."
Sounds like hypocrisy to me.
What needs to happen is people of color must enter into the realm of journalism and attain positions of power in order to shape up news coverage. Until that happens, the news will remain white -- with us making its pages only when we're dunking a basketball or killing each other. I'm Audi, Peace 5000 G.