Establishing a culture of care is an intentional shift from practices of harm, extraction and exploitation. The Othering and Belonging Institute says:

A "culture of care" is an organizational and social philosophy that prioritizes psychological safety, empathy, and relationship-building to support people's holistic well-being. By placing human value above pure efficiency, it fosters inclusion, boosts retention, and allows individuals to thrive.

Media 2070 believes that the culture of newsrooms can and should prioritize care in their practices of news coverage and as employers and institutions. The Media 2070 “Newsroom Pledge to Care for Black Communities and Black Journalists” is a stated commitment to work towards a culture of care and away from harm.

By signing on to this pledge, newsrooms are agreeing to move from systems of harm and extraction, towards becoming an institution dedicated to serve the public and community at large. See below for our pledge points:

Our Newsroom/Media Organization pledges to begin and/or continue to care for Black communities and journalists by:

1. Assessing Narratives: Auditing and assessing whether our newsroom’s stories, structure and leadership demonstrate care for Black communities is critical. We will examine whether the representation of Black communities is reflected by the community, region or country we’re part of. We will make concrete changes wherever we are not showing care.
2. Centering the Directly Impacted: When covering systemic violence against Black people, we will use our reporting and storytelling to center the information and care needs of those who are directly impacted.
3. Recognizing Systemic Context Matters: Considering people within the context of systems and histories of harm, power and oppression is good journalism. When writing about victims of state and police violence, and other systems such as healthcare and education, we will consider history as well as the nation’s track record of engagement with Black communities.
4. Not Criminalizing Victims: Refusing to criminalize Black people, especially children, who are murdered by the police is necessary. For example, we make every attempt to use sourced photos provided by family instead of running an unrelated mug shot with a story, which contributes and uplifts narratives of criminality.
5. Calling Children, Children: Avoiding adultification, a bias that frequently surfaces in coverage of Black girls is important. We will avoid referring to teens as men and women, or other language making them out to be older than they are.
6. Questioning Police Press Releases: Accurate and thoughtful reporting goes beyond reprinting police press statements. We will be critical of police and police narratives in the pursuit of verifying factual information.
7. Trusting Black Journalists: We must trust Black journalists, both when they move up and offer to tell nuanced stories about Black people and Black communities and when they need to grieve and move back as directly impacted individuals.
8. Caring for Black Journalists: We will proactively share resources and create space, paid time off and other institutional policies for Black staff to take care of themselves.
9. Avoiding AI Use: We commit to not use generative AI, which relies on data centers that are often extracting from and polluting Black and Brown communities and trained on language models that are fed stereotypes and problematic tropes.
10. Putting People Over Profits: We will not partner with entities that perpetuate extraction and exploitation, support state violence and harm communities. Media companies should be holding surveillance corporations and governments to account, as they are profiting from public information and data collection in ways that violate civil and privacy rights.

We fully commit to shifting the longstanding culture of harm in our newsrooms to a culture immersed in and informed by care. The Media 2070 “Newsroom Pledge to Care for Black Communities and Black Journalists” calls for us to access current practices and to pursue media reparations by acknowledging and taking accountability as well as moving towards reckoning and redress.