On the anniversary of the proclamation of Philippine Independence on June 12, ABS-CBN International’s Head of News Production, Troy Espera, was one of the featured speakers during the Ethnic Media Dialogue on Covering Racial Injustice Protests and COVID-19 hosted by the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education.

Other panelists were Ethnic Media Services Founder Sandy Close, Mundo Hispanico’s VP of Digital Content Maria Bastidas, Ethnic Media Services Contributing Editor Khalil Abdullah, and Sing Tao Daily Reporter Rong Xiaoqing. They lent their voices and shared their thoughts and sentiments on the pressing issues that the country is faced with, especially on the impact of racial prejudice and the coronavirus pandemic on communities of color.

The online dialogue moderated by Maynard Institute’s Odette Alcazaren-Keeley and Martin Reynolds showed how ethnic voices are important in telling the stories of how these global and national incidents impact the communities.

In an article by Reveal Senior Reporter Aaron Glantz, he says that  “These are not disconnected stories, as they are often portrayed in our country’s largest media outlets. They are different sides of the same story of racism and inequality in America. People of color are not only dying at the hands of police, they are also disproportionately perishing of the new coronavirus.”

Former BA Executive Producer and current Director of the Maynard 200 initiative, Alcazaren-Keeley explains to Glantz how ethnic media has been chronicling and reporting news that show the huge inequality in benefits and opportunities that affect people of color, “including healthcare and insurance access, education, high-level paying jobs, nutrition, housing, and the overall access to opportunity.”

In the same article, Glantz shares how Espera “said that the mainstream media has largely ignored the story of the pandemic’s impact on Filipino-American healthcare workers even as it valorized nurses as heroes.” Espera described that “There are whole families, parents and children, going into work and surviving and unfortunately some of them don’t survive. That’s very real for us.”

Other speakers have asserted that a lack of diversity within the leadership and ranks of mainstream media might prevent them from seeing how these stories and occurrences are interrelated.

The Maynard Institute for Journalism Education is the nation’s oldest organization dedicated to helping the news media accurately portray all segments of society, particularly those often overlooked, such as communities of color. Maynard seeks to help news media achieve both a diverse staff and provide the public with the most accurate and nuanced coverage possible.

Read Aaron Glantz’ full story here.
Watch the virtual conversation here.