Author: talatyaq

Written By Anisha Yaseen

I was fortunate enough to attend a two-day event organised by Pass The Mic Scotland, founded by Talat Yaqoob. Their mission is to provide opportunities for women of colour to participate in the media industry as experts, commentators and writers. Alongside this, they work to achieve equal representation in a typically white-male dominated industry and policy-influencing space in Scotland.  

I cannot emphasise enough how crucial these opportunities are for people, like me, who do not have a starting point and often feel unheard by those in the media industry. The media plays a significant role in shaping society’s views and opinions, and it is vital that everyone’s voices are heard.   As someone who is passionate about campaigning and activism, I found the event both inspiring and exhausting. It is frustrating to see how much harder women, especially women of colour, must work to achieve the same opportunities as our male, white counterparts. Being in a room full of like-minded individuals who share similar experiences was refreshing, but it is equally frustrating that we all share these experiences of being underrepresented and sometimes, misrepresented.  

It is an unfortunate reality that many women of colour find themselves as the sole representative of their race in meetings and other professional settings, only to have their voices and opinions marginalised. Racism is a pervasive issue that goes far beyond overtly derogatory comments and name-calling, as it is deeply ingrained in the very structures of society. It is essential that women of colour are seen as more than just a diversity checkbox, but instead as individuals with expertise across a range of topics from the economy to education, to the environment. While there has been significant attention given to diversity in the media industry, it is crucial that we move beyond the rhetoric and take tangible steps towards creating a more equitable environment. Ultimately, our goal should be to establish a society that is truly inclusive, and a media sector which tells the stories that represent all of Scotland, engaging a wide range of expertise, regardless of their race or gender.  

One of the discussions during the two-day event focused on what media can learn and do differently. A wide range of people from media were invited and it was all over social media for people to freely register. Yet there were a distinct lack of men working in and around media who attended. This was discouraging for many of us, and was pointed out many time. If anything, this outcome just reinforces the need for diversity and inclusion in media decision-making positions.

During the event Women of colour expressed concerns about their experiences with racism and sexism being dismissed, – the problems with perpetuating a deficit model that blames marginalised communities or sees them as lacking in skills and a lack of trust between marginalised communities and some areas of media.  It is crucial to prioritise trust-building with marginalised communities and move towards equality in the media industry and wider policy/political influencing.   As a woman of colour, it is frustrating to feel ignored and marginalised by the media. It’s not okay for the media to represent women of colour without giving them a voice or a chance to share their ideas. Simply including a few people of colour is not enough; their representation must be equal, and their voice heard. While it’s great to see progress towards inclusivity, it should be the norm, the expectation from all rather than being something so rare it still needs to be celebrated.   It’s important to keep in mind that progress towards inclusivity should never be a reason to become complacent.

There is always more work to be done to ensure that women of colour are given a platform to share their ideas and have their voices heard. According to Kaye Nicholson from STV, approaching more women of colour in their area of expertise is a win-win situation. Not only do journalists expand their contacts and find new content,- but there is also a representation of society to their audience.   Pass the Mic a fantastic example of a platform that gives women of colour an opportunity to express themselves, to build skill, but importantly, to push for progress within media and beyond.  

Overall, attending the Pass the Mic event was an invaluable experience that reinforced the importance of equal representation in the media industry. It is crucial that we continue to support organisations like Pass the Mic and work towards creating a more inclusive society in which everyone can see themselves in.

The 2023 women of colour writers group is now open for applications. The programme runs from late March 2023 – September 2023.

As part of the programme you can expect:

• Allocation to a media partner (STV, The Scotsman, The Courier, Press and Journal or Holyrood Magazine), with payment of £100 for your article.
• Potential for a further £100 payment for an article written between June – September with Bella Caledonia or another non-profit platform.
• Online development sessions with editors and guest speakers
• Funded place for Pass the Mic development days in Glasgow in May (provisionally 12^th May) and June (provisionally 19^th & 20^th June) with specialist training and networking opportunities.

With thanks to SUII for the kind funding enabling Pass the Mic to host our set of in-person development days and the publication of non-profit articles.

Fill in the application below by 15th March 2023

APPLICATIONS ARE NOW CLOSED.

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.