Media Diversified was a UK-based nonprofit media and advocacy organisation for writers and journalists of colour, founded by filmmaker Samantha Asumadu in 2013. It published nonfiction articles by a variety of writers at its website, which was updated several times a week. Although much of Media Diversified's staff were UK-based, its pool of writers and its readership were international. All staff members and writers were people of colour. Major topics covered by the site include

discrimination Discrimination is the process of making unfair or prejudicial distinctions between people based on the groups, classes, or other categories to which they belong or are perceived to belong, such as race, gender, age, class, religion, or sex ...

against Black, Asian, and minority ethnic people,

politics Politics () is the set of activities that are associated with decision-making, making decisions in social group, groups, or other forms of power (social and political), power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of Social sta ...

immigration Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not usual residents or where they do not possess nationality in order to settle as Permanent residency, permanent residents. Commuting, Commuter ...

Islamophobia Islamophobia is the irrational fear of, hostility towards, or hatred against the religion of Islam or Muslims in general. Islamophobia is primarily a form of religious or cultural bigotry; and people who harbour such sentiments often stereot ...

intersectionality Intersectionality is an analytical framework for understanding how groups' and individuals' social and political identities result in unique combinations of discrimination and privilege. Examples of these intersecting and overlapping factor ...

history History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some t ...

popular culture Popular culture (also called pop culture or mass culture) is generally recognized by members of a society as a set of cultural practice, practices, beliefs, artistic output (also known as popular art

f. pop art F is the sixth letter of the Latin alphabet. F may also refer to: Science and technology Mathematics * F or f, the number 15 (number), 15 in hexadecimal and higher positional systems * ''p'F'q'', the hypergeometric function * F-distributi ...

or mass art, sometimes contraste ...

, and global conflict.

History

Journalist Samantha Asumadu, whose work focuses on stereotype-challenging individuals and organizations, such as female rally drivers in Uganda, started the #AllWhiteFrontPages campaign in 2013 to critique the predominance of white people in mainstream newspaper photography. Media Diversified was created that same year to advance the profiles of journalists and writers of colour. Two years later, Media Diversified launched the Experts Directory, a database of experts of colour aimed at media organisations. To date, the Experts Directory is the only such database in the UK. In the same year, the organisation debuted The Trashies, " heequivalent of Hollywood's Razzies" for journalism, to critique racist, Islamophobic and xenophobic coverage in mainstream media. The "winner", chosen by popular vote, was

Grace Dent Grace Georgina Dent (born 3 October 1973) is a British columnist, broadcaster and author. She is a restaurant critic for ''The Guardian'' and from 2011 to 2017 wrote a restaurant column for the ''Evening Standard''. She is a regular critic on t ...

for her 23 February 2015 article in ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

'' on the British teenagers who left the country to join

ISIS Isis was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. Isis was first mentioned in the Old Kingdom () as one of the main characters of the Osiris myth, in which she resurrects her sla ...

. In February 2016, Media Diversified presented Bare Lit, the first literary festival in the UK for authors of colour. The festival took place over 26–28 February at the Free Word Centre and the Betsey Trotwood

public house A pub (short for public house) is in several countries a drinking establishment licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption Licensing laws of the United Kingdom#On-licence, on the premises. The term first appeared in England in the ...

Clerkenwell Clerkenwell ( ) is an area of central London, England. Clerkenwell was an Civil Parish#Ancient parishes, ancient parish from the medieval period onwards, and now forms the south-western part of the London Borough of Islington. The St James's C ...

, London. The closure of Media Diversified was announced in May 2019, when founder Asumadu said: "The plan is to keep our archives up in perpetuity. We’ll also keep our ebook store going in order to fund the domain and any other charges that are incurred during our winding down period....I think the biggest gift we could ever give is our promise to keep the site up for as long as it is possible. It’s an invaluable archive. Go browse."

In other media

The work of Media Diversified writers has led to increased coverage of under-recognized issues in the mainstream media, such as ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

s 2015 article on black people in the UK dying in police custody and the child sexual abuse perpetrated by UN peacekeeping troops.

Owen Jones Owen Jones (born 8 August 1984) is a left-wing British newspaper columnist, commentator, journalist, author and political activist. He writes a column for ''The Guardian'' and contributes to the ''New Statesman'', ''Tribune (magazine), Tribune ...

, writing in ''The Guardian'' on anti-EU migrant bigotry in the wake of

Brexit Brexit (, a portmanteau of "Britain" and "Exit") was the Withdrawal from the European Union, withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU). Brexit officially took place at 23:00 GMT on 31 January 2020 (00:00 1 February ...

, cited a Media Diversified open letter about the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

giving platforms to racists and fascists.

Accolades

In 2015, Samantha Asumadu was named as one of the Libertine 100, a list of 100 influential female thinkers in the UK, for her filmmaking and her work with Media Diversified. The following year, she was chosen to be a judge at the 2016 Comment Awards for journalism.

References

{{reflist Advocacy groups in the United Kingdom Organizations established in 2013 United Kingdom journalism organisations 2013 establishments in the United Kingdom