Ms Ashley Chadamoyo Makombe:

On Headline, a similar organisation would be welcome. As somebody hoping to go into reporting, I remember asking my lecturer in first year about online abuse. The reality is, I think most of the lecturers I have had have been men. Only one was a woman and almost all of them have been straight. They are prepping me for online hate but they have no understanding. Their perception of online hate is nowhere near mine. Even during summer 2020 when a lot of the Black Lives Matter, BLM, stuff was happening in the US, I was waking up every single day to direct messages from people telling me to kill myself, that I do not belong and racial slurs just for saying, "Hey, maybe killing people is not okay". I did not even have a career as a journalist at that point. If, every single day, as an unknown person on the internet, that is the level of hate I have to prepare myself for, then what happens if I am on RTÉ? What happens if I am working for The Irish Times? Something like that would be welcomed. It is a deterrent for a lot of people who are minorities from going into media jobs because nobody should have to wake up every single day to people telling them they do not belong and they should not exist because of something they cannot control.

The "belonging" idea is interesting. I think Emma Dabiri tweeted a few days ago about EDI and that inclusion is great but what am I being included to? I do not want to be a mouthpiece for regurgitated discrimination against other people and be okay with it just because I am the minority in the room. It is strange when it comes to having quotas and saying you have to hire this amount of people of colour or women, because getting your foot in the door does make the difference for a job, but is it worth working in a company if you are just going to be spewing the same amount of hateful rhetoric towards other groups of people just to get your foot in the door? That is a cultural change that needs to happen. That issue is not limited to just media companies. Jobs in general will push diversity and inclusion but when you get there, if the culture in the workplace has not changed, then ultimately, what is the point?