Diversity role at BCU for pioneering journalist
. Award-winning journalist Nadine White
The UK’s only dedicated race correspondent on a national newspaper has secured a new role at Birmingham City University (BCU), recognising her pioneering work in championing the voices of underrepresented communities. Award-winning journalist Nadine White (pictured), race correspondent at The Independent, has been named as a Visiting Industry Fellow at BCU to celebrate her work highlighting the challenges facing people of colour in the UK.
The role will see Nadine share her experiences and expertise with aspiring journalists in the University’s School of Media through a series of masterclasses, events and activities.
Nadine was appointed as race correspondent at national news brand The Independent earlier this year and she remains the only person in the country to hold that title. Her work has uncovered racial disparities in unemployment levels and homelessness, exposed surges in Anti-Asian hate speech and has examined how the UK education system impacts people of colour. She will provide valuable insight and contributions to the university’s Sir Lenny Henry Centre for Media Diversity, which was set up to examine and champion diversity in the UK’s media.
Nadine, who previously worked as a senior news reporter at HuffPost, said: “Through this role, I look forward to helping to nurture a new generation of talent. Birmingham City University has one of the most diverse student bodies in Britain. Diversity is beauty and it is strength.” She was named on Forbes’ ‘30 Under 30’ Europe list in 2020, named Best New Journalist at the Amnesty Media Awards in 2019 and has been shortlisted for the prestigious Paul Foot Award for her investigative work.
Dr Sarah Wood, head of Birmingham City University’s Institute of Media and English, said: “As the UK’s first and only Race Correspondent, Nadine is playing a vital role in championing the voices of underrepresented communities. Her career achievements will be a real inspiration to students across our media courses, and they will benefit greatly from learning from her experience, expertise and insight.
“Welcoming Nadine will also be a huge positive for our Sir Lenny Henry Centre for Media Diversity, and will help us make even greater strides in ensuring the media reflects our wider society.”
After her appointment at The Independent, Nadine told Press Gazette that reporting about issues relating to race, and amplifying black perspectives in particular, was “part and parcel” of why she became a journalist. She said she wanted “to be part of the change that I’ve always wanted to see” and that being race correspondent was both her “dream role and an important continuation of the work I’ve been doing over these years”.
Born in 1992 to Jamaican parents, Nadine grew up in Brixton, in south London, and said she and many others around her felt that “journalists didn’t come from where we come from”.
“When we turned on the TV and when we picked up newspapers we didn’t see our perspectives reflected,” she said. “We, as black people, felt ostracised from wider society as though we didn’t matter, and so I was driven to become a journalist in order to challenge the perception that black people’s perspectives didn’t deserve to be heard. News should speak to everyone in society. So reporting on race is part and parcel of my reason for becoming a journalist.”
