Thread by @JamilSmith

This is important journalism from @trymainelee, as if there is another kind. He went to Iowa to speak to black voters there about their concerns ahead of the 2020 election. More reporters should follow his lead in general, but particularly in this regard. on.msnbc.com/2QsaOad

It matters that we, as journalists at every level, do not depict localities that are predominantly white as entirely so. It matters that we do not depict working classes that are multicultural as monochromatic. It doesn’t require as much critical thinking than you might believe.

I’ll give you one example. @nytimes published this story earlier this week; you can find it earlier in my Twitter feed. Youngstown isn’t far from where I grew up, so I know its population is about half black. You wouldn’t know that from this, which isn’t just about Youngstown.

The @nytimes article isn’t about Youngstown so much as it’s about white working-class Trump voters in Youngstown and the rest of Mahoning County and neighboring Trumbull County—both much whiter. This is territory that the press has covered, literally and figuratively speaking.

Or, if the press is going to continue with this amateur anthropology and keep letting Trump voters spout racist and sexist barbs, at least identify them correctly. Rather than using euphemisms like “blue-collar voters” and “working-class” interchangeably, just say “white people.”

The press has the tools to cover a multicultural electorate. The journalists who can do this work are out here. The examples of how to do it are available. However, the excuses are not. At some point, it becomes evident that some of y’all are simply refusing to do this correctly.

There are not enough people of color calling the shots in journalism to ensure that 2020 reporting will accurately reflect America’s multicultural electorate and their specific concerns. So we can’t afford to wait for that progress. We rely upon white people in charge getting it.

So to those white people in charge in particular, please watch @trymainelee’s report keeping everything I’ve written here in mind. There are so many stories for you to mine from black communities, so many that go well beyond the typical Black Stories that you think that you know.

We all can do better in this regard. I also need to get my ass to Iowa and talk to black voters. Towns like Youngstown, too. We’d all do better to pay attention to who is actually “unheard” in the 2020 cycle. They’re the ones we’re not hearing from in every other fucking article.