Should reporters always be conscious of race?

The first idea that comes to anyone’s mind when they think of a good journalist is their ability to inform the public in a balanced way without exposing his or her opinions. So, can the ideal journalist exist when it comes to race? I think that it cannot be denied that race plays a very important role on people’s lives in this country. 


In general people that are considered a minority find it easier to relate to those in their same 'race' when it comes to understanding their points of view or being sympathetic with their struggles. 


With journalism I think race is a difficult matter to avoid, sometimes we feel uncomfortable asking questions that would expose us as racist, other times when you are a reporter who is part of a minority (like me) people fear that they might hurt me by answering a question.

The thing that bothers me the most about the issue of reporting and race is the fact that it doesn’t become a “race thing” unless it is done by a minority. For example, the issue of school shootings and violence in schools has been a hot topic on the news for the past years, but I have seen that when reporting most of these mishaps the race issue is of race is not even mentioned unless it was a black thing, a Hispanic thing or any other minorities.

It is important to break the barriers of race in this country especially when it comes to news reporting. We can’t have Caucasians covering white stories, African-Americans covering their stories, Hispanics theirs and so on. We have to get passed that an be able to ask the uncomfortable questions. It is not a problem only this society has, in other countries the issue might be religion and not race or class system and not race. The important thing is that we have come a long way but still have to do a lot more, and it starts with having an open mind when we go out there especially as reporters.