Pass the Mic was launched in October 2019 out of frustration at the lack of visibility and inclusion of women of colour’s expertise and a lack of stories that matter to us. This blog is being written with much of the same frustration.
Last September, Pass the Mic was successful in securing short-term funding to work with 30 women of colour and seven media partners to publish (and pay for) their articles on their area of expertise. You can read all of the brilliant pieces (seriously, you should, and you’ll understand my frustration that we don’t read more of these voices, more often). They cover topics from the social care system in Scotland, the gaming industry, anti-racism in teaching, the impact of no recourse to public funds policy for women experiencing domestic violence, and so much more. These are important topics to cover, but the time these expertise were given a platfrom was too short. The hard work of improving representation and delivering high-quality, well informed coverage of sexism, racism and the intersections between, requires longer-term, in-depth work by media organisations themselves.
We have certainly seen some increases in the number of women of colour in media, largely on our screens as the 20-30 second expertise on a topic during evening news. This is a great start, but we need more. Most importantly, we need these voices to be a regular part of commentary and to be paid. My frustration continues at the lack of the latter. We have opportunities for opinion pieces to be offered (I have done many) and we also have regular commentary pieces in papers – but where are the women of colour? When I have asked this, I have been told that these are experienced voices who already have a following and new voices need support and financial investment that they just don’t have available right now. I do not deny any of that and (most) commentators are worthy of the platform they have. But if that’s the case, how on earth are new voices meant to get through? This is the same conundrum new graduates have when applying for jobs; you can’t get the job because you don’t have prior experience, you can’t get experience, because you didn’t get the job. We need to make space; we need papers to invest in time and resource to work alongside “new” commentators. I appreciate that resources are tight across Scottish media, but for there to be sustainability of the sector, we need to attract wider audiences and to do that, we need women of colour’s voices. It’s clear media organisations know this, that’s why there is spending happening on improving digital platforms and on hiring new talent. Again, where are the women of colour?
Media partners who took part in this programme with us were clearly interested and supportive of Pass the Mic. They talked about understanding the problem and wanting to participate in the Pass the Mic writers project to identify talent, share their platform and as a step towards tackling under-representation. Many of them also provided feedback about the articles they received, commending the writing and insights of the women of colour involved. So now it’s the harder work, without the structure and funding provided through Pass the Mic, media organisations now need to engage, identify, support and pay women of colour themselves. We must build on this, not see it as enough of a try in the hope representation improves by itself. Indeed, some women of colour who were involved in the project provided feedback and expressed that too often they felt their media partner saw their inclusion as a “short-term task to complete” or “a token gesture” rather than as an opportunity to engage more diverse voices, publish different opinions and critically, consider their own biases in what they include, invest in or promote.
The work requires internal culture change, it requires proactive outreach, it requires time and money being invested in women of colour. The Pass the Mic funded project has clearly illustrated the interest, the ambition and the talent of just 30 women of colour in Scotland who are keen to be involved in media; image the talent that we haven’t reached, that remains overlooked, that Scotland should be hearing from. Newspapers – we must do more to make it happen.