African American female aspiring journalists and the lack of African African American female television news directors and producers

Abstract

African-American women have unique experiences in the workforce due to the intersectionality of their gender and race. Being a double minority has created challenges for them in various career paths, including U.S. television newsrooms. One of the challenges include diversifying executive positions and decision-making positions in the workforce. This is a familiar challenge in television newsrooms across the U.S. While television newsrooms have seen a sluggish increase in diversification, African American women are far from proportionately filling positions of producer, director and general manager. This study looks at African-American female aspiring journalists at four different universities to see if there are any factors that influence the lack of African American females in decision making roles in U.S. newsrooms. With the use of semi-structured interviews, this study analyzes the motivations, career goals and perception of challenges they expect to face in efforts to reach their set goals.