FOR THE RECORD

damaging racial inequalities are in the United States, according to city consultants. However, the REDI Action Plan is overall intersectional, examining how to make Golden a better place for people of all ages, abilities, gender identities, sexual orientations, socioeconomic backgrounds, religions and other demographics.

O cials said the next step is to assemble an implementation team of community members and city sta ers to make recommendations to City Council on how to achieve goals. Golden expects to assemble the team this spring.

In a Feb. 10 email, Mayor Laura Weinberg highlighted city o cials and community members’ ongoing work to “live up to our value as a welcoming and inclusive city.”

“I applaud the Golden Transcript’s work to identify its role in racial inequities in the past and its role in systemic racism,” she stated. “ e City of Golden has undertaken similar work … (and) I look forward to this year’s actions to take the information from our new REDI plan and put community-driven solutions into practice.”

For the Golden Transcript

While the Transcript’s ownership and newsroom has changed greatly since the late 1960s and early ‘70s, it’s not immune from the biases and attitudes that riddled its past coverage and contributed to systemic racism in and around Golden.

Scrable said reading the Transcript’s past coverage of the Black community can be “demoralizing,” but even recent stories have failed to represent Black voices.

He pointed to an Aug. 31, 2020 Transcript story about City Council’s decision to display a “Golden Stands With Black Lives” banner over Washington Avenue. e story said the banner would be displayed for 60 days, “an amount of time intended to symbolize how long it took for slave ships to cross the Atlantic.”

Scrable and his GAC co-chairs did advocate for 60 days, but they never assigned any symbolism or signicance to the number.

“It might’ve been said (in the meeting), but it wasn’t us,” Scrable said of GAC. “It was a misquote.”

After the Aug. 31, 2020 story, Scrable received about 20 phone calls from people upset about the supposed symbolism. He felt the Transcript hadn’t done enough research and ultimately misrepresented the facts, and that insensitivity created a very frustrating experience.

A banner reading “Golden Stands with Black Lives” hangs from the iconic “Welcome to Golden” sign over Washington Avenue in September 2020. After declaring racism as a public health crisis in 2020, among other e orts, Golden recently adopted a Racial Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Action Plan.

He wanted the Transcript to ensure there are positive stories about people from historically marginalized groups, and do better educating Goldenites about their neighbors’ achievements and experiences.

Scrable added: “I’m looking to the Transcript to paint a positive picture for all people of color … and representing ‘all’ versus ‘a few.’” e Colorado Community Media newsroom acknowledges it has work to do, and this February 2023 report is only the rst step in what the team hopes will open a wider conversation about systemic racism and media coverage for years to come. Working on this report brought CCM sta members faceto-face with outdated practices and implicit biases.

Going forward, CCM’s goal is to include more voices of color in the newsroom and on the pages of its two dozen publications, Publisher Linda Shapley said. CCM wants to ensure all local voices are heard and included, while also re ecting on racial equity, diversity and inclusion. CCM will strive to consider the lenses through which the sta decides to cover stories in the rst place. Appreciating di erences in CCM’s coverage areas, like history and culture, will guide the newsroom in its e orts.

Other newspapers such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, e Kansas City Star, Philadelphia Inquirer and more have done similar analyses of their past coverage, and the Transcript encourages other newspapers in the region and across the country to do so as well, Shapley said, adding that it wouldn’t have been possible without a Colorado Media Project grant.

For all journalists, Porter stressed the importance of continuing to diversify newsrooms and ensuring fair, balanced and objective coverage and “stop convicting people without evidence.”

He called on more publications to review their past coverage and acknowledge its harmful impacts, saying it’s important to shine a light on the truth, to be honest and to be transparent.

“If we’re ever going to get past this, it’s going to take some truth-telling,” he said. “It will be hard. It will be difcult. But it really is one of the last vestiges to make this country what it said it was in the beginning — freedom and liberty for all. Which has not been the case for us.”