INTRODUCTION
As a news organisation covering amplifying authentic community voices and offering media skills training programmes, we feel a responsibility to clearly and publicly state our commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB), both for our journalism and within our organisational culture.
Mojatu Magazine & Digital media services is situated at the intersection of community journalism and provision of media literacy and skills.
- Historically, the voices of people from marginalised communities, particularly women and migrant communities in the UK, and those from lower socio-economic statuses have been ignored or negatively covered by mainstream media. They have not been proportionately represented in the ranks of newsroom staff or the stories that newsrooms produce.
- Our media literacy scheme enables local communities to understand what is in the media and how to gainfully engage with media houses and media contents.
- Our media skills entail training local community journalists through a 12 month training and work placement programme.
As an organisation that values language and word choice, we want to be precise when we talk about DEIB at Mojatu Magazine & Digital.
- Diversity: Encompassing a wide range of identities, including race, ethnicity, gender, age, national origin, religion, disability, sexuality, socioeconomic status, education, marital status, language, veteran status, physical appearance, political ideology, life experiences, etc.
- Equity: Fair treatment, access, opportunity, and advancement for all people, while acknowledging that there are historically underserved and underrepresented populations and striving to identify and eliminate barriers that have prevented the full participation of some groups.
- Inclusion: An environment in which any individual or group can be and feel welcomed, respected, supported, and valued as a fully participating member; one that embraces differences and respects all people.
- Belonging: The feeling that an individual is an important member of a group; that one readily identifies as a member of the group and feels a sense of connection, security, and affinity within it.
Actions
At Mojatu Magazine & Digital, we are taking the following steps in ensuring we keep DEIB at the forefront of our work:
Strengthen Our Journalism
- Continue to provide training on inclusivity awareness to our staff designed to support reflection, growth, and planning as equity leaders.
- Work with partners to develop a tool that will efficiently track the diversity of our sources, as we hold ourselves accountable for representing diverse voices from the communities we serve.
Create an Inclusive Culture
Build teams that represent our communities by developing diverse recruitment pipelines and implementing hiring practices that eliminate bias.
Develop and sustain programmes to support new and early-career employees (e.g., onboarding buddy program and mentorship matching).
Implement an anonymous platform for staff to share feedback, questions, and concerns.
Increase Visibility and Awareness
Continue to be transparent with work we are doing, through our contents, posts and updates to the About Us section of our website.
Publicly describe in detail our progress to becoming a more diverse and representative organisation given the communities we cover, especially given the systemic racism and lack of DEIB in the nation, in journalism, and in other sectors in the UK.