Five decades after Kerner Report, representation remains an issue in media

[Commentary] In February of 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson’s National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders issued the Kerner Report—which detailed an extensive and daunting list of inequalities and inequities that led to civil unrest in Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Newark. Among its findings, the commission highlighted how the lack of adequate representation among the people assigning, reporting, and editing media coverage might drive “the underlying problems of race relations.” 

As a nation, we must recommit ourselves to the lessons of the Kerner Report, and to building a media that reflects the whole of America—not one that divides and only reinforces one side or another. We must advocate for the hiring and promotion of journalists who represent the full American experience, and also for the creation of and support for local journalism that holds the powerful to account. We cannot allow another 50 years to pass before addressing the inequalities that eat away at our media, and America as a whole. Together, we must ensure that the people who understand the problems facing all communities have a voice in solving them, and news platforms that reflect their views. In the meantime, we, collectively, will keep speaking truth to power—until the powerful in media and Washington start telling more of our truth.

[Darren Walker is the president of the Ford Foundation.]