Last year, a journalist who was the subject of intense online abuse was hired into a new position to focus on under-reported stories from minority racial groups. She reflects on the good, the bad and the ugly that come with the territory
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Over the last year, stories centred around racism and racial discrimination have continued to dominate the news agenda. There were big headlines around the Black Lives Matter movement, debates over the country’s historical links to slavery and the allegations from Prince Harry and Meghan Markle that the British press is racist.
But for many Black, Asian and minority ethnic people, racism is an everyday experience. And yet, the news agenda does not reflect those perspectives.
This time last year, The Independent made a bold move to commit to uncovering more of those unheard stories. They hired a race correspondent in Nadine White, the first role of its kind in the industry, designed to report specifically on racial groups. The Guardian and the BBC each have “community affairs correspondents” with similar intentions, but the Independent’s role is clearly a lot more direct in its focus.
In January 2021, whilst working in her previous role at the Huffington Post, Nadine became the story herself was flooded with abuse after the British MP and Equalities minister Kemi Badenoch tweeted screenshots of emails in which Nadine asked for comment on why she did not participate in a video encouraging ethnic minorities to get the covid-19 vaccine.
A year on into this new position, in this week's podcast, White shares the stories she thinks have made an impact, how her audience keeps her accountable, the effect of the job on her mental health and how the position has made her an even bigger target of online abuse.
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