ABSTRACT
Racial mistrust is likely to grow in significance as America’s minority population swells, new racial and ethnic rivalries emerge, and the economy continues to restructure, with jagged results. Journalism helps shape how racially diverse people think of each other and how public policy on race-related issues is formulated. In northeast Ohio, the Akron Beacon Journal’s venture into racial frankness was calmly entitled “A Question of Color.” As the project gained momentum, the Beacon Journal, under the banner “Coming Together,” began explicitly to encourage racial bridge-building among groups and ordinary individuals. The published story on the sessions showed that, much like the public, black and white journalists can look at an issue and see divergent realities, as if watching different movies. Looking back, Keith Woods, a black journalist who pushed the project as city editor and who is a columnist and editorial writer, says he lost white friends and suffered some of the deepest pain in his life in the process.
