Join us for the second installment of our Emerging Scholars Speaker Series with Dr. Denetra Walker
"I Try to use my Little Power": The Roles and Multi-Consciousness of Black Journalists and their Lens of Gatekeeping Blackness
Following the 2020 coverage of deaths of Black Americans at the hands of police, subsequent Black Lives Matter protests, and a global pandemic, a “racial reckoning” ensued throughout the nation. Through Walker's positionality as a Black woman and former journalist, she interviewed Black journalists working in local television stations around the U.S. to reflect on their experiences working in predominately white newsrooms covering these stories to understand their roles in combating mis and disinformation. In this talk, Walker introduces Gatekeeping Blackness, which is the lived experiences of Black journalists' balancing their journalistic ideals, uplifting counternarratives of marginalized communities, and advocating for a more culturally diverse, antiracist newsroom culture and society.
