Burlington Free Press transforms coverage of racism and diversity

by Lisa Sharon Harper

December 14, 2006 | | Burlington, Vermont

Bullets whizzed through elementary school halls in Essex, Vt., on Aug. 24, 2006.  The shots struck and killed Alicia Shanks, a 56-year-old teacher and beloved member of Essex’s tight-knit community.  In all, two women died that day.  Only minutes before, the shooter, Christopher Williams, had killed his girlfriend’s mother, Linda Lambesis, in her home only a few blocks away.  Both victims were white women.  The shooter—an African American man.

In Vermont, 96 percent of the population is white. Blacks living in Essex make up a mere .4 percent of the population.  In such an environment, these events had the makings of a sensational, racialized story. 

The Burlington Free Press could have exploited racial stereotypes.  But it didn’t. An article detailing events of the day did not mention the racial background of either victim or of the alleged assailant. For many readers, coverage of the shootings marked a shift in the way the paper covers stories where racial dynamics are at play. 

For some time, Gannett (the paper’s parent company) had pressed the newspaper to improve the quality of diversity coverage. In 2001, when Michael Townsend became executive editor of the publication, he made this a priority. Townsend worked with his staff to restructure the paper, rethinking the systems that undergird daily news publications, and retraining staff. As a result, the Burlington Free Press does a better job of diversity coverage. The key, as Townsend says, “is being more inclusive.”

 

An article in the Free Press features Yiota Ahladas, one of Burlington's key study circle organizers.

Townsend’s quiet revolution continued in spring 2003 when he and seven Free Press staff participated in the Burlington study circle program on race. The program was a cooperative effort between the Burlington Anti-Racism Coalition and the Connecticut-based Study Circles Resource Center.  Each week for seven weeks, Townsend and an ethnically diverse team—including section editors, copy editors and the photo chief—joined more than 250 Burlington residents in discussions about racism.

The circles had difficulty getting off the ground.  Segments of the Burlington Anti-Racism Coalition pushed for different approaches to addressing racism within the community.  Some prominent leaders balked at the idea of the study circles.  “We don’t need more talk,” they said, according to Yiota Ahladas, Director of the Center for Community and Neighborhoods for the City of Burlington.  Ahladas was one of two primary organizers of the program, along with Martha Maksym, Director of Community Services for the United Way of Chittenden County.

Some leaders lobbied for direct action through street marches and rallies.  Others advocated for a legislative approach.  Still others continued to press for the study circles.  The coalition ultimately broke into three subcommittees and did it all. 

Fortunately for the Burlington Free Press, the segmented Anti-Racist Coalition didn’t reject the study circles.  Rather, it chose a multi-faceted approach similar to that negotiated by the leaders of the civil rights movement.  The inclusion of study circles as part of the coalition’s strategy added the grassroots, multi-ethnic dimension to Burlington’s strategy that Septima Clark and the later Congress of Racial Equality’s Freedom Summer brought to the civil rights struggle. (See sidebar.)

The study circles gave Townsend and his staff a productive way to have a dialogue with Burlington residents that led to a better understanding of different sectors of the community. 

“The strength of the study circles,” says Townsend “is that it forces you to deal with your neighbors and the people you know in the community.”

The Free Press staff heard residents’ stories.  Those stories changed them and, ultimately, they changed the Burlington Free Press.

“In two hours you get an awful lot on the table,” says Townsend.  “And in seven weeks times two hours, that’s almost two full days of talking.”  So, Townsend’s staff “came back with a range of perspectives from their groups.”

At one point, a group engaged Townsend in a conversation about how to communicate the stories of people of color. “We’re just people,” the group said, “with the same wants and dreams that white people have.”  

Soon after that conversation, Hal Colston, an African American resident of Essex,  remarked, “there was a series of stories that appeared on the front page of the ‘Living’ section—stories about people from other cultural experiences.  It might be a Jewish wedding or it might be an Asian family.  It was kind of like sitting around the kitchen table and just hearing each other’s stories.  And it was done by interviewing people—not just people of a particular race or ethnic group.”

Study circles end with a call to action.  Burlington’s study circles broke into several task forces charged to take what they’d learned and act on it in their various spheres of influence.  Townsend joined a media task force charged with improving coverage of Burlington’s diverse residents. When the task force failed to gain momentum, he formed his own task force in the form of a reader panel.

“We went through the [study circle] groups,” Townsend recalls, “and picked out names of people we’d heard about who we knew would be interesting to talk to, would engage us and would challenge us as a newspaper.” 

One of the names on Townsend’s list was Hal Colston. Executive director of NeighborKeepers, a nonprofit organization dedicated to breaking the bonds of poverty one family at a time, Colston was familiar with study circles through his United Way board membership.  He participated in a study circle as part of the Snelling Center for Government’s Vermont Leadership Institute in 2004. 

Colston said, “I liked the honesty that I sensed from Mike and his staff.  I believe, because of their participation in the community-wide study circle, there was a commitment on their part to really go deeper on this, to be challenged.”

Reflecting on the tragedy in Essex, Colston said the story framed the killings in the context of domestic violence. “It never struck me as being this black/white thing.”

In the past, Colston said, the paper was “notorious for stereotyping. The negative stuff would rise to the top, and few and far between, you would see the stories of hope and celebration.”

The influence of the reader panel on Townsend is palpable. “I grew up in suburban Maryland where there were very few blacks,” Townsend says.  “We had a very large black population in Baltimore.  I was afraid of blacks.  When I saw them, I would walk to the other side of the street.  But what I didn’t realize as I grew up was that they were afraid of me.  They went to the other side of the street, too.

“We have a man on the staff here,” Townsend continues.  “Modi Kwanza, a page designer in the features section, is a deacon of New Alpha Missionary Baptist Church—a Black church.”  Kwanza invited Townsend to church one Sunday because Townsend wanted to hear gospel music.  “I went to the church and I was the only white person there.  There was a very dynamic speaker and they had all these songs and I felt so different, and so comfortable, and so at home.  And I was noticing all the differences in how people dealt with each other.  And then I was noting all the similarities: the way people dressed, the friendliness, the warmth and welcoming.”

For almost four years, Townsend and his staff have engaged in an evolutionary journey that eventually compelled them to expand the Free Press coverage of communities of color.  Ultimately, this has led to a complete restructuring of the Burlington Free Press.  No longer does the paper focus solely on covering breaking news stories. 

Townsend employed a multi-layered approach to the newspaper’s coverage.  Under his leadership, the paper now covers the problems of particular ‘sub-communities.’ Photographers have been instructed to “make sure you’re inclusive—getting a range of many different kinds of people.”  Townsend adds, “At the same time, we asked reporters to develop a list of key minorities we can use as sources.”  Finally, they examined key issues concerning diversity. 

Townsend is a proactive leader, and he is using his authority to institute an inclusive approach to news coverage at the Burlington Free Press.

What discussions went on in the editorial room that led to such balanced coverage of the Essex County shootings? “None,” Townsend says. “It was automatic.”

Sue McCormack, study circles program director who worked with study circle organizers in Burlington, says this kind of change is difficult to achieve. “This work is really hard,” she says. “Study circles are wonderful at prompting changes in individual behaviors and attitudes.  Policy and institutional change is harder to create, but by sticking with it, people can make it happen.”

Despite measurable progress, Townsend and the Free Press still face great challenges.  “It’s kind of like a water bed,” he says.  “You push down on the refugee side, and then you have too much.  And on the other side, what comes up is that you have less coverage of the long-time residents of color.”

Neither he nor his editors are satisfied with the paper’s coverage of issues that affect people of color.  “I would like to see some harder coverage on actual racism,” he says.  “I don’t think we plan that very well.” 

When asked what improvements would look like, Townsend responds with a long list. He wants to institute routine, issue-based coverage, with regular investigation and follow-up of government performance.  He plans to follow issues over time to track improvements or patterns of losing ground.  He wants to ask people of color to write more columns that say, “This is my experience of living here.  It’s a nice place to live, but there are things we need to deal with.”

Even so, Townsend and his team have established a level of institutional change that makes it possible for the Burlington Free Press to respond to the issues facing all of its readers—not just the 96 percent who are white.

This year, the Burlington Free Press received an 87 on Gannett’s 100-point diversity rating scale—a significant improvement since a low evaluation in 2001. This institutional transformation reflects a combination of Townsend’s leadership, the staff’s hard work, Gannett’s high expectations — and serious and committed conversations, where the Free Press found a new way to hear Burlington’s diverse voice.

Learn more: Diversity  | Racial Equity