RESOURCES
READING LIST - EQUITY IN VISUAL MEDIA
Authority Collective
This is meant to be a living document of resources. Please email us at info@authoritycollective.org if you have more helpful resources to share. Thank you.
Dignified Storytelling
Dignified Storytelling Handbook
Storytelling sits at the heart of the human experience, enriching our understanding of the world and of one another. Stories connect us, unite us, and remind us that we are more alike than we are different.
Decolonizing Documentary and Journalism Reading List
Ligaiya Romero
This is an evolving resource list from the Decolonizing Documentary workshop at Duke’s Center for Documentary Studies, taught by Ligaiya Romero (info@ligaiya.com)
Poynter
Passion and persistence drive Nikole Hannah-Jones, a newly minted MacArthur genius
Ashley McBride
My message is for newsroom management, not journalists of color, to ask them to really do some examination about if their stated goals are really their goals. It’s the same thing I say about school segregation. If newsroom managers wanted diverse newsrooms, they’d have diverse newsrooms.
Nieman Reports
Why We Need More Visual Journalists and Editors of Color
Tara Pixley
Through the professional ethics and practices of objectivity in journalism, we have consistently found ways to humanize most members of American society, from convicted rapists to murderous white supremacists. Depictions of black Americans rarely receive such treatment in news media, however, whether in images or the written word. We must commit to challenging all prevailing and easy narratives, affirming a desire to do both good, accurate, ethical storytelling and to take into consideration a multifaceted perspective with which we may be entirely unfamiliar.
Aperture
Why Aren’t There Any Famous Asian American Photographers?
Will Matsuda
White men largely dominate the industry; their biases help them to maintain power. Most surviving histories are written by people in power...A lot of the images showed people of color in vulnerable positions. How does this imagery feed the people in power? When the narration is this one-sided, it does not recognize people of color as full human beings. -Mary Kang
Viewfind on Vantage
Behind “Prom King”: On Journalism and Advocacy with Sophia Nahli Allison
We have to realize we’re powerful enough to create change. We want people to understand why our voice and our stories are important. We have to keep treating people with kindness and realizing our work will make a difference.
The New York Times
Teju Cole
Telling the stories in which we are complicit outsiders has to be done with imagination and skepticism. It might require us not to give up our freedom, but to prioritize justice over freedom. It is not about taking something that belongs to someone else and making it serve you but rather about recognizing that history is brutal and unfinished and finding some way, within that recognition, to serve the dispossessed.
PDN
An Open Letter Against Sexual Harassment in the Photo Industry
Justin Cook and Daniel Sircar
We want to rid the industry of sexual harassment, sexual coercion, sexual assault and abusive behavior. We demand that the culture of silence and corporate policies that enable predatory behavior be changed.
PDN
David Walker with reporting Conor Risch, Rebecca Robertson and Holly Stuart Hughes
I want this industry to understand that the discrimination I face is different from the discrimination a white woman faces,” says photographer Oriana Koren. “People have very limiting ideas of the sort of work they imagine a black womxn doing and I can tell you firsthand, being behind the camera is not one of those jobs they imagine.
COLLABORATORS
DATABASES + AFFINITY ORGANIZATIONS
Black Women PhotographersBlack Women Photographers disrupts the notion that it is difficult to discover and commission Black creatives. Dedicated to providing a resource for the industry’s gatekeepers
Women PhotographDatabase of more than 650 independent women documentary photographers based in 91 countries.
Diversify PhotoCurated database of photographers of color available for assignments and commissions.
Indigenous PhotographA space to elevate the work of Indigenous visual journalists and bring balance to the way we tell stories about Indigenous people and spaces. Our mission is to support the media industry in hiring more Indigenous photographers to tell the stories of their communities and to reflect on how we tell these stories.
Brown Girls Doc MafiaBGDM is a collective of women (and non-binary) filmmakers and industry representatives of color. The collective builds community online and in person to further members’ creative enrichment, exchange resources and ideas, and bolster professional growth and opportunity.
Chinese StorytellersChinese Storytellers is a collective that gathers Chinese non-fiction content creators, amplifies their voices and supports their work.
POC in AudioThis website was created by Adizah Eghan, Afi Yellow-Duke, Zakiya Gibbons, Aliya Pabani and Phoebe Wang, after Phoebe delivered a speech at the 2018 Third Coast International Audio Festival award ceremony, calling out the overwhelming whiteness of the industry and spotlighting POCs within it.
Equity At The Table (EATT)EATT is an easy-to-navigate database for food industry professionals featuring women/gender non-conforming folks with a focus POC & LGBT professionals.
Foto FéminasFoto Féminas is a platform promoting, through monthly online features, the work of female photographers working in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Free The BidA 501c3 non-profit initiative advocating on behalf of women directors for equal opportunities to bid on commercial jobs in the global advertising industry.
Writers of ColorThe OG inclusivity database (created in 2014!) compiling writings of color curated by Durga Chew-Bose and Jazmine Hughes.
Women Who DrawAn open directory of womxn and womxn identified/nonbinary illustrators across the globe.
LatinX DirectorsLatinX Directors aims to bridge studios and agencies with Latinx directors in the simplest way possible with their full, searchable website that includes film, T.V., and commercial filmmakers.
Film FatalesFilm Fatales supports an inclusive community of women feature film and television directors who meet regularly to share resources, collaborate on projects and build an environment in which to make their films.
Necia Media CollectiveWe are especially passionate about connecting those of us who work in multimedia with a social justice and community-oriented lens. The great aspirations we have for Necia Media will only be brought about through the efforts of a diverse, international, diasporic network of trans and cis womxn and gender non-conforming folks of color working together to foster our dreams and skills.
Spicy ZineSPICY, created in February 2018, is an online zine and creative collective led by women of color (WoC) and queer + trans people of color (QTPoC). Our mission is to create a platform empowering WoC + QTPoC to create, express, debate, learn, unlearn, and ultimately decolonize the media — a space that doesn’t always include us.
