Bob Johnson and Lauren Williams and Isis Simpson-Mersha

Dear Reader,

Black History Month isn’t totally about the past. It’s also about the ongoing struggle and progress in the now.

For MLive and the diverse communities we serve, those stories are not only told by journalists like Bob Johnson and Lauren Williams and Isis Simpson-Mersha. Each of them has their own story about being Black in an industry that is predominately – and historically – white.

“I think we’re taking steps in the right direction,” said Johnson, the news leader in our Saginaw and Bay City newsrooms. “We’re trying to bring diversity to our newsroom, which in turn is bringing diversity to our stories. And it represents the population of people that are our readers, that we serve.”

Johnson started with MLive as a reporting intern and has worked his way up to editor of our newsroom in his hometown of Saginaw. Simpson-Mersha also is a Saginaw native and worked for us there before moving to our Flint newsroom.

Black citizens make up the largest demographic in both communities. Being Black doesn’t make a person a better reporter per se – but it makes the journalism better by broadening perspectives. Simpson-Mersha, for instance, uses a translator at times in her reporting so she can be more informed and accessible to Flint’s significant population of Latinos.

“It's really important that we have minorities in the newsrooms so that we're able to have a perspective of what is important and to tell these stories accurately for these communities,” she said. “Over the last couple years, I've been more aware of the different perspectives or all the different sources that go into it so that it is showing diversity – not the same sort of players that are in a certain community because of the title that they hold.”

Williams covers another predominately Black community – a locker room in the National Basketball Association. That provides some helpful perspective and access in a league where 75 percent of the players are Black.

“It's been a pretty welcoming environment, especially because a lot of the players that I cover, their mothers look like me. So, I try my best to use that to my advantage,” she said.

That said, the NBA is like most other institutions and businesses in America – 90 percent of team presidents are white. That’s a reality in Williams’ work life, too.

“It's still intimidating some days, especially when you're trying to talk to the front office, or people in the positions of power in the organization, because a lot of them are white men,” she said.

“The thing that I try to do is just connect with them on a human level and then take it from there. Try not to let anything intimidate me. Try to be as confident as possible, which is hard. But, you know, that's kind of the mentality that I take in with me every time I try to do my job.”

Williams and Simpson-Mersha face an added degree of difficulty as they face biases and stereotypes directed at women. Simpson-Mersha tells of being cat-called on the job, and of covering a city council meeting at which the police chief referred to her as “little reporter girl.” And Williams is in small minority of women working as professional sportswriters.

“I've unfortunately been on the receiving end of some of it, but I made sure to set as many boundaries as possible and came out on the other side without any big scars,” she said. “That’s another big challenge that comes with being a woman in sports, especially a Black woman in sports.”

I don’t have the background or experiences of our employees of color. But I know how important it is to have them working in our newsrooms and communities, and how essential it is to push for progress – and not just during Black History Month.

More hiring, more inclusion, more voices, more perspective. And this quote from Simpson-Mersha sums up the objective AND the payoff:

“It's just really nice to be able to report on a community that I look like.”

🎧 To listen to an engaging discussion with Johnson, Simpson-Mersha and Williams on being a Black journalist, and the progress and challenges we face as an industry and society, tune into this week’s episode of Behind the Headlines, an MLive podcast. Click here to play. To follow all of MLive’s Black History Month coverage, click here.

John Hiner is the vice president of content for MLive Media Group. If you have questions you’d like him to answer, or topics to explore, share your thoughts at editor@mlive.com.