Media reports about the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements have placed a big spotlight on sexual harassment, discrimination, and inequality in the workplace. Ironically, female journalists tasked with reporting these stories continue to have career challenges and obstacles. Women make up more than two-thirds of graduates with journalism or mass communications degrees. Yet the media industry is just one-third women. That number decreases for women of color, reports show. According to the Women’s Media Center report The Status of Women in the U.S. Media 2017, men receive 62 percent of bylines and other credits in online, television, print, and wire news. Men also took home 84 percent of the prestigious Pulitzer Prize over a century.

Three acclaimed WBEZ reporters will share with us their experiences and analysis on issues of race, gender, and class in journalism:

• Monica Eng is WBEZ’s Curious City reporter. One of her recent popular radio stories is “Baring It All: Why Boys Swam Naked In Chicago High Schools.”
  

• Natalie Moore is WBEZ’s South Side reporter. She’s author of the critically-acclaimed book The South Side: A Portrait of Chicago and American Segregation.

• Linda Lutton is WBEZ’s senior education reporter. She’s reporter for the award-nominated radio story “The View From Room 205: Can schools make the American Dream real for poor kids?”

They’ll tell us what changes they believe must take place to improve diversity, inclusion and fairness in newsrooms, both in Chicago, and across America.