Reporters across all 50 states covered protests this week against racism and social injustice but for journalists of color, those assignments present a unique set of challenges that can be difficult to process while also trying to do your job.
On this week’s episode of “TheWrap-Up” podcast, hosts Sharon Waxman and Daniel Goldblatt were joined by Aaron Randle, metro reporter for the New York Times, and TheWrap’s Trey Williams to discuss the feelings they have had while covering a story that is so personal to them.
“When the protests are rooted in anti-black violence, being a black reporter, you know, that kind of innately puts you into the story in a way,” Randle said. “And so there is this always this is dissonance and trying to balance being innately a subject of a story but then also having the job as a reporter of being impartial and, to some extent, unemotional in telling the facts. Having to do both of those things simultaneously, it’s very discordant and it kind of creates, a little bit of a trauma that I haven’t experienced before in covering similar stories that involve unrest or upheaval.”
Williams added, “I was talking to my mother, who is a black award-winning journalist at the Kansas City Star, and we were just talking in like a brief moment that we both had free. And she asked me, she said, ‘You sound angry.’ And I said, ‘Well, that’s good cause I am.’ And I can’t apologize for it because all of the history that we grow up learning about in black homes, that our mothers and fathers tell us, and how they tell us to behave in the world because of that history, is really now coming to the forefront. And yeah, it makes me angry.”
Watch the video above and you can listen to the full episode below.
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“TheWrap-Up” is hosted each week by founder and editor in chief Sharon Waxman and assistant managing editor Daniel Goldblatt. The pair dive into the biggest headlines of the week in the world of movies, television, streaming and tech. Each episode features two deeper dive segments featuring our knowledgable and talented team of Wrap Pro reporters, offering up their in-depth, expert analysis you won’t hear anywhere else.