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Featured at Nieman Foundation | Mary C. Curtis

It’s Time to Cover Black Women as the Norm and Not the “Other”

Though I’ve seen the way the media portray Black women evolve over time, I don’t think I’ve ever seen it done exactly right — or at least with the complexity and nuance we deserve. I say we intentionally, though journalists are not supposed to be part of the story. But seeing — and not seeing — myself in the newspapers my family read and the television news shows we watched was what spurred me to choose the profession.

Or, maybe it was the reason the profession chose me.

Now, with Black women rising in visibility in fields from culture to politics, journalists are being tested in reporting on a group of Americans who have been, at turns, ignored and stereotyped. I have viewed the situation from the inside and outside.

Dori J. Maynard Believed ‘Journalism and Life Demand All Voices’

It’s hard to imagine the world without Dori Maynard in it. She leaves an incredible legacy and has touched so many. You can hear it in the many tributes greeting the news of her death. How did she manage to do so much in 56 years? How could she be so many places, making speeches and driving home the point that journalism and life demand all voices in order to work in any accurate and meaningful way—and then offering wise counsel and a sympathetic ear in a late-night phone call to a friend?