By Joy Coker, Editor and Founder, ALT A REVIEW
When I started ALT A REVIEW, I set out to do one simple thing: give space to the arts and culture stories that mainstream media too often overlooks. Over the years, that mission has taken many forms: our ongoing theatre coverage, from exclusive interviews with voices like Winsome Pinnock, to reviews of new work at venues like Soho Theatre; our film and arts coverage span red carpets; as platform built specifically to amplify Black, Brown, and minority voices across the creative industries. Today, we’re taking that mission a step further.
I’m proud to announce the launch of the Black British Journalism Awards (BBJA), the UK’s first awards programme dedicated entirely to recognising Black and Brown excellence in journalism, and to building an even stronger pathway into the industry for the talent coming next.
Why now
The numbers speak for themselves, and they’re not good. According to UK Journalists in the 2020s, a 2025 study by City, St George’s, University of London and the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, just 4% of UK journalists are Black or Asian combined, against 13% of the general population. That gap should be closing. Instead, it’s barely moved since a comparable study a decade earlier.
It’s not just about who gets in the door; it’s about what happens once they’re there. The same research found that Black and Brown journalists are far less likely to reach management: three-quarters have no management role at all, compared with under two-thirds of their White colleagues, and just 3% hold a middle-management position, compared with 15% of White journalists. Some newsrooms have taken steps to address this: the Guardian created a senior editor role for diversity and development in 2021, and the BBC published its own diversity and inclusion plan the same year, but the underlying numbers show how much further there is to go.
There’s also a wider discourse worth naming. The tone of British media has come under heavy scrutiny in recent years for how it represents Black and Brown communities and more recently with the coverage of Jason Arday, racially charged coverage built on old tropes, and, at times, outright bigotry, dressed up as commentary. This is the climate the BBJA is launching into, one where representation isn’t just about who gets to report the news, but how fairly anyone who is black and brown are covered by it.
We believe that changes from the inside out. That’s why, two years ago, we put the ALT A REVIEW – Journalism & Visual Storytelling Internship Fund in place, slowly helping to give opportunities for more Black and Brown talent into mainstream journalism in the first place and to want to be part of this industry. The industry tells fairer stories about Black and Brown communities when more of the people telling those stories come from within them.
As Anthea Kasonga writes for the Media Diversity Institute, one important way of counterbalancing the UK media landscape is through the growth of local and Black-led media operating independently of traditional commissioning structures. Across the UK, these publishers and broadcasters are creating their own platforms, setting their own agendas and making space for stories and voices that can be overlooked by mainstream media.
This is one way of evening the playing field. The growth of newsletters, podcasts, membership models and community broadcasting is helping to reduce some of the commercial and technical barriers to establishing independent media. Ofcom’s expansion of small-scale DAB, alongside the Community Radio Order 2025, has also created further opportunities for community broadcasters to establish their own channels.
The Media Diversity Institute highlights youth-led broadcasters such as Reprezent Radio, established Black newsrooms such as The Voice, membership-based publishers such as Black Ballad, and culture-focused publications such as The British Blacklist. These outlets operate in different ways, but collectively demonstrate how independent media can create alternative routes to publication, build audiences and give communities greater control over how their stories are told.
It’s a pattern we recognise well beyond journalism, too. ALT A REVIEW exists because Black and Brown-led newspapers make up less than 5% of the UK publishing industry, a gap that shapes not just who gets to write, but whose stories get told at all, on stage, on screen, and in print. We’ve spent years building an answer to that in our own corner of the industry as ALT A REVIEW a small bespoke media outlet led by a self employed founder who first hand faces the challenges of the industry but also recognises the opportunity and the need for diversity. The BBJA is the next, bigger step.
What we’re building
The BBJA will be a night of recognition and celebration, launching in 2027 in London, honouring Black and Brown journalism across print, television, radio, entertainment, arts and culture, independent publishing, and community reporting. Full award categories will be announced in the coming months.
And the awards won’t stand alone. They’ll sit alongside the work the ALT A REVIEW – Journalism & Visual Storytelling Internship Fund over the last year we have self funded our internships but we are opening the door for donations HERE
AN INVITATION- Work with the Black British Journalism Awards 2027
This is the start of something we intend to build carefully, and for the long term. Over the coming months, we’ll be announcing our judging panel, opening nominations, and confirming venue and sponsorship details. We’re also actively seeking partners, sponsors, and supporters who believe, as we do, that British journalism, and British culture more broadly, should reflect Britain, and that talent shouldn’t be limited by who can afford to work for free. The Black British Journalism Awards is also an invitation to connect Black and Brown journalist and media outlets.
If that’s you, we’d love to hear from you.
The Black British Journalism Awards are about recognising the journalists already changing the story, and making sure the next generation gets the chance to do the same through our internship fund and advocacy.
Nominations, partnership enquiries, and further details will be announced in the coming months.
Sources: “UK Journalists in the 2020s” (2025), City St George’s, University of London, and the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism; https://www.media-diversity.org/black-voices-and-power-in-uk-journalism/#:~:text=The%20Reuters%20Institute’s%202025%20factsheet,colour.%20In%20the%20UK%20sample
