WKNO TRANSCRIPT
CHRISTOPHER BLANK (Host): Long time listeners of public radio already have some idea of what makes this media different from others. It's all about voices -- a sound that is authoritative and authentic. In 2018, Ayesha Rascoe brought her distinctive voice to NPR as a national reporter. Today, she's a host of Weekend Edition Sunday. We're grateful to have her join us. Ayesha, thank you for your time.
AYESHA RASCOE: So glad to be here.
BLANK: When you started, we heard from Memphis listeners, who used words like "refreshing" to hear a voice that sounded like someone we knew -- someone with Southern roots. And I wonder, did you have a sense at the time of the impact that might have?
ROSCOE: Oh, I had no idea. I came to NPR from a print background, so I was a writer, you know, writing the news, not speaking it. And so when I got here, the people at NPR, the higher ups and my editors and everybody said, you know, we want you to speak like yourself. We want you to sound like yourself. But the best version of myself, but still sound like myself. And so I really tried to do that. And then when I started seeing the response, at first I was like, what's going on? You know. But the response was so positive overall. And hearing people say you sound like my friend, you sound like cousins, you sound like my loved ones: that really was very special.
BLANK: And what attracted you to broadcast journalism?
RASCOE: Well, you know, I had done writing for such a long time and I was ready to do something different. But then when I got into broadcast, what I realized was it touches people in a different way, and I would say even different from TV, because I do some TV here and there. But when you do the radio, you're really in people's homes, you're in their ears, and they feel like they know you. You're not like separate and apart from them. You're a part of their family. People feel a closeness to you. And hearing things, it really touches you in a different way.
BLANK: Minority representation in newsrooms is better than it once was, especially on the local level. What's the best argument for more diversity in national news coverage?
RASCOE: Well, I think the big thing in national news coverage -- and in all coverage -- is diversity helps everyone because you get a variety of perspectives, a variety of different life experiences, and you can reach more people. NPR, I love, has a mission, and the mission is to serve the public and to inform the public. So, the public is diverse. And so, we want to be reflective of that.
BLANK: Speaking of life experience, you've also edited a book of essays titled "HBCU Made: A Celebration of the Black College Experience. And you're an alumna of Howard University. What does a journalism degree from an HBCU, bring to listeners that we might not even realize?
RASCOE: Well, I think that HBCUs are so very special because they are made to allow Black people to go to school, to be educated without having to deal with this glare of being different. Like most Black people will be in spaces throughout their life where they may be one of the only, right? And then they come to an HBCU and they're one of many. And what you get from that is to be able to embrace your full humanity. Because you're not a representative of the race. You know, you're not a representative of the gender. You are a person. And you realize also the diversity of thought among Black people, because we're not monolithic. So, I think the benefit to public media is that you get a deep education, and also an idea of what can be done, of the impossible. Because, really, when you look at HBCUs, you're looking at places that have very little, but have been able to achieve so much. And so, I think there's some of the best representation of what America is: how you can take so little and pour into people and really produce so much.
BLANK: Well, finally a political question. Many lawmakers, particularly here in the South, are opposed to DEI policies. And I wonder if you see a connection between public media's ongoing effort to diversify newsrooms, and the Trump Administration's recent defunding of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Is diversity itself a sign of liberal bias? And how should news organizations respond to that criticism?
RASCOE: I think diversity is not a sign of liberal bias because there are lots of very conservative Black people in this world. You've just got to talk to them. And I talk about this all the time on air. I'm a Bible-believing Christian. Evangelical even. You know, you can't just look at someone and say they're a reporter and know everything about them, right? People have all sorts of different beliefs, right? So I think that when we look at diversity, what we're trying to do is not trying to filter out ideas. What we're trying to do is actually be reflective of the public and actually showing respect for them. But what I think people are trying to do is say, we don't live in a world that is just, you know, white and male. So a diverse newsroom is reflective of the fact that everyone on this earth has worth and is worthy of being able to express themselves and inform the public.
