Knight winner ponders lack of minority participation in ONA confab

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2010 Knight News Challenge winner Retha Hill attended the Online News Association gathering in October in Washington, D.C., and found it valuable. However: Where were the minority participants? “The lack of diversity at ONA ’10 was the subject of a brief but heated conversation between some National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) members, a few of whom wanted to ‘do something’ about it, like call ONA’s leadership out,” she writes on today’s (Dec. 28) MediaShift.

“Was it an oversight? A slap?” Hill mulls. “Or was it a reflection of the lack of diversity in the country’s online newsrooms? Maybe it is the echo chamber effect of the online news types whose definition of who is innovating is limited to the people they hang with.”

She also offers a few “New Year’s resolutions” for bringing more diverse voices into the online news world, including tapping the staffs of BET.com and MTV.com.

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