Faye Minton
In November and December 2022, Social Media Manager Lauren Bryant organised and hosted a series of EDI workshops, focused on addressing some barriers young journalists face when breaking into the industry. Each of the four instalments invited established journalists to a panel to discuss a topic related to their own career journeys.
1. Disability and Journalism
On 23rd November, Lauren Bryant and April Jones welcomed Charli Clement and Lydia Wilkins to discuss the experience and representation of disabled people in journalism. Charli is an award-shortlisted activist and writer who speaks on topics including disability, neurodiversity, and chronic illness. Lydia, who has worked with Empoword on a number of projects, is the host of the Conscious Being Magazine podcast and has recently published her debut book, The Autism Friendly Cookbook.
This conversation was extremely important and came as a breath of fresh air to the attendees. Our panelists chatted about their own journeys into the industry, the pressures they sometimes feel to only be disability activists, and knowing how much of their own story to share with the world.
You can watch the full workshop here:
2. LGBTQ+ and Journalism
On 2nd December, Lauren was joined by Editor in Chief, Shannon McGuigan to interview Sophie Perry. Sophie is the founder of the LGBTQ+ Journalism Network and freelances for big publications like DIVA and Curve Magazine. Sophie was awarded the first ever Inclusion and Diversity Award at the Newsquest Excellence Awards for her contributions to the LGBTQ+ community in journalism.
You can find out more about her experiences, her work, and how she feels the industry can be improved by watching the workshop here:
3. Racial and Ethnic Diversity and Journalism
Next, on 16th December, Lauren Bryant and Simran Mann hosted a workshop on racial and ethnic diversity. They were accompanied by Natalie Morris and Meehika Barua. Natalie is a freelance journalist and Metro’s former Senior Lifestyle Writer. She has also recently published her debut book, Mixed/Other. Meehika has worked in both London and New Delhi, but is currently a freelance journalist for names like The Guardian, British Vogue, and Al-Jazeera.
The panel described their personal journeys, finding the balance between journalist and race activist, making sure they don’t share too much with the world, tokenism, and reacting to discrimination.
You can watch it back here:
4. Class Background and Journalism
Our final workshop in this series centred on class background and its place in journalism. Lauren and our Admin Editor, Eleanor Bowskill, guided the conversation with Rebecca Lockwood and Emily-Jane Heap on 17th December. Rebecca is the former Editor in Chief of the Tab Lancaster, and now reports for Lancs Live. Emily-Jane has previously freelanced for The Telegraph and Kent Live, and is now a reporter at Ferrari Press Agency. Both identify as working-class journalists. They discussed their experiences of this, touching on the lack of socioeconomic diversity in journalism, the feelings this can bring up, and the different routes available to make journalism more accessible to the working class.
You can catch up on this here:
Faye Minton
Faye is a former Empoword Editor in Chief and an MA International Journalism student at Swansea University.