How can news organisations hire diverse talent to grow audiences?

Newsrooms are increasingly looking to hire more women, LGBTQ+, BAME or disabled people to address the misrepresentation of voices and faces working in the news and media industry.

The concern, however, is that employers are more keen to publish better diversity stats than truly leverage new talents. At the same time, lack of diversity results in missing out on valuable stories and opportunities to grow audience.

Russell Contreras, reporter, The Associated Press will be joining a Newsrewired panel to add a US perspective on achieving diversity without PR motives and avoiding tokenistic mentality. He will argue that there are legitimate business reasons for driving diversity in the newsroom: the big one being the talent question.

He will also speak about the strategies The Associated Press uses in its newsrooms, what has worked and what has not amid changing demographics.

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Russell Contreras is the latest addition to a panel that will also feature Robyn Vinter, founder and editor-in-chief, The Overtake; and Marverine Cole, journalist, broadcaster and academic, Birmingham City University.

Contreras is the former president of UNITY: Journalists for Diversity in the United States and a member of the Native American Journalists Association and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.

View Newsrewired agenda

If you would like to become a speaker or a sponsor, please contact Marcela Kunova at marcela@journalism.co.uk.

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