Black journalist pushes for spotlights on Black voices
Alexa Joy wishes people knew the hardships and challenges Black journalists face in Canada
Alexa Joy feels Black voices should consistently be given a spotlight in Journalism. Joy worked for CBC for two years, and most of her work centred around BIPOC and LGBTQ+ issues people face.
Every article she has written that has centred around Black communities has always been an op-ed, Joy said she has not written a main homepage article.
"I don't think Canadians still are ready for a lot of critical pieces, especially critical race theory analysis to be not an op-ed," said Joy.
Soon after the May 2020 police murder of George Floyd, a Black Minneapolis man, Joy pitched a series to CBC Manitoba called Uncensored where she focused on uplifting Black voices and things that were happening within Black communities.
"Uncensored was and only happened because of the George Floyd incident," said Joy.
Joy said she thought she would have more support with Uncensored, she was in charge of a lot of the marketing strategies.
"A lot of it felt like, here's the mic and now it's stopped trending so we're gonna take it back," said Joy.
When tragedy strikes in Black communities that is when diversity and inclusion are main focuses but after a while it starts to fizzle out.
Joy said during the summer of 2020 Black communities had the attention of the public in a different way and a lot of things started happening with recognition and accountability including, events, funding, initiatives, and programs.
"It wasn't really a fundamental shift because we're I think arguably we are in the same place that we were," said Joy.
In 2021 The Canadian Association of Journalist released a study on diversity within newsrooms. Out of the 209 newsrooms they found that 75 per cent of the journalists were White.
“For some people they get impassioned about it and they say well I wanna be the person who comes in and breaks that barrier,” said Joy.
Joy said in order to get into a better place where Black and BIPOC journalists are as prominent as other voices it will take a lot of perseverance and strength from younger generations.