The issues and voices of people of color and women have attracted much attention from professional journalists over the past few years. Yet many such individuals have criticized journalists' portrayals and coverage of issues that are important to them.

Knight Foundation recently collaborated with digital production studio Postlight to release a study that explores how subcultures on social media, specifically Black Twitter, Feminist Twitter, and Asian-American Twitter, interact with reporters and the news. The goal is to create lessons for reporters on better covering and engaging with these communities, aligned with Knight's journalism work that supports greater newsroom diversity.

To explore what we learned and build on the research, Knight and Postlight are inviting journalists, scholars and technologists for an afternoon of dialogue.

Olivier Kamanda, director of learning and impact at Knight Foundation, and Paul Ford, co-founder and managing partner at Postlight, will start the afternoon at 3 p.m. with a run through of the report and platform "How Black Twitter and other social media communities interact with mainstream news." Topics for discussion will include:

3:15-4:00 p.m.: Repairing the Relationship: How can we create trust between media and diverse communities? How can the media tell richer, more diverse, more respectful stories? How can journalists report accurately on marginalized communities?

• Meredith D. Clark, assistant professor at the University of Virginia and researcher of "How Black Twitter and other social media communities interact with mainstream news"
• Terrell J. Starr, senior reporter, The Root
• Sydette Harry, editor at Mozilla and editor-at-large of The Coral Project
• Anusha Alikhan, director of communications for Knight Foundation

4:15-5:00 p.m.: What Audiences Tell Us: Why are the most shared outlets also among the most criticized? How should we approach the broken feedback loop that encourages low-quality content?

• LaSharah Bunting, director of journalism for Knight Foundation
• Deen Freelon, associate professor at the University of North Carolina and lead researcher of "How Black Twitter and other social media communities interact with mainstream news"
• Elizabeth Nolan Brown, associate editor at Reason
• Paul Cheung, director of visual, NBC News

5:15-6:00 p.m.: The Role of Platforms: How do platforms create and encourage unproductive dynamics, and how might they develop in response to research? 

• Gina Trapani, partner and director of engineering at Postlight
• Manoush Zomorodi, host and editor of Note to Self 
• Olivier Kamanda, Knight Foundation director for learning and impact
• Anil Dash, entrepreneur, activist and writer

 We hope you can join us.

Agenda:

Monday March 26, 2018

2:30-3 p.m.: Registration

3-8 p.m.: Program and cocktail reception

**This event is invite-only. For questions, contact Xarissa Holdaway at xarissa.holdaway@postlight.com.