The National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) will host its 2018 Region 1 Conference April 13 and 14, 2018 in New York City. The Global Diversity Summit is bringing together hundreds of journalists, communication professionals and students from across the U.S. Northeast to attend the two-day conference. Titled the “Global Diversity Summit,” the conference will have a five-pronged approach:

• National and international reporting and editing
• Diversity coaching
• Media training
• Community engagement
• Career advancement

The summit will focus on improving the industry’s coverage of America’s diverse landscape, promoting international dialogue through stories and media coaching, and providing diversity training for all levels within the industry. This year the conference will spread across two days offering “Diversity & Management Training” for mid-level editors, supervisors and aspiring newsroom leaders and a return of last year’s successful “Career Center,” where companies and area graduate schools interview applicants on the spot.

It should come as no surprise that New York City is home to the headquarters of the world’s most significant international organization: the United Nations. After all, the city itself is in essence a living United Nations. A recent U.S. Census Bureau report about NYC revealed an increasingly diverse and dynamic city with immigrants making up the majority of the residents in some neighborhoods.

All five boroughs illustrate this melting pot of cultures through activities, museums, stores and restaurants, where you can meet people of different countries, sample exotic cuisine and products, listen to international music and watch foreign films.

With almost 200 languages spoken, 40 percent of the N.Y.C. population was born outside of the United States. Combine the cultural and ethnic diversity of the residents with the hundreds of consulates, embassies and permanent U.N. missions and you have a cosmopolitan city unlike any other. Even the embassy-filled nation’s capital, Washington, D.C., is downright homogeneous when compared to the ever-changing rainbow of worlds that is New York City.

Census projections indicate that minorities will become a majority in the U.S. by 2044. While some progress has been made in covering communities of color — it has not been enough.

Journalists often find it difficult to have open, honest conversations about race and ethnicity—even compared to other contentious newsroom issues, like gender imbalances—for fear of damaging relationships with editors or colleagues. The summit aims to improve on that, if not, provide solutions. Join us.