By Arsalan Iftikhar
Date Posted: April 11, 2008
DiversityInc correspondent Arsalan Iftikhar appears weekly on National Public Radio’s “Barbershop” segment with Michel Martin.
Michel Martin, national radio host of National Public Radio (NPR)’s “Tell Me More” program, took time to tell us about diversity at Harvard in the 1980s, working for ABC’s Ted Koppel and the responsibility of media in today’s diverse and multicultural America.
“You blocked the door … You wouldn’t let me leave,” she jokes as we sit down in her NPR office to discuss her meteoric rise from the hallowed halls of Harvard Radcliffe to the elite levels of print, television and radio broadcasting.
“Tell Me More” was launched nationally by NPR almost one year ago with the aim of “capturing the headlines, issues and pleasures relevant to multicultural life in America.”
The national daily one-hour series is hosted by Martin, an Emmy-award-winning journalist previously jettisoning to the highest levels of “ABC Nightline,” The Washington Post and White House correspondent for The Wall Street Journal.
Martin, a Brooklyn native, offered her personal insights into a wide range of subjects from diversity in the media to multicultural voices that are not being heard by the general public.
On Diversity at Harvard University in 1980 (her graduation year):
“I don’t remember that clearly … The reason that I know that I don’t remember is that when I went to a Harvard reunion, my 25th, shockingly enough … I went to a forum for the entire class at Memorial Hall with [then president] Larry Summers and I remember thinking, ‘This cannot be right.'”
“The audience was white, overwhelmingly male–I mean, overwhelmingly male–and somehow I didn’t remember [Harvard] that way. But it was.”
“I think the student population [at the time] was only 8 percent African American and there were also people that I know … for example, the current president of MALDEF [Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund] John Trasvina was in my class.”
“I remember it being more diverse than it actually was … It wasn’t even gender diverse back then.”
On Attending Wesley Theological Seminary:
“I’m still enrolled there (laughs) … I enrolled there when I was at ABC Nightline.”
“Religion is such an important force in American life … Fundamentally, if you’re going to accept that this is a multicultural, multi-religious society, you have to, I believe, start with a position of respect.”
On Diversity Differences Between Print/TV/Radio:
“[The reason that] I don’t like the way we talk about race is that everyone is presumed to be an expert, whether or not they know anything … Sometimes, I think there are facts which deserve to be respected.”
“Anecdotally, I have observed that media organizations think that they make a powerful effort in this direction. But I’m not sure that they do.”
“Each business has its own challenges.”
On Newspapers: “The newspaper business has the challenge of being a contracting business … It’s just very hard when you’re a contracting business; the main thing you’re trying to do is hold onto jobs and expand your business.”
On Network TV: “When I first got into network television, it was an expanding business and the era of newsmagazines … And now it’s contracting again.”
On Radio: “NPR has been an expanding universe over the last 10 years … Why do you think I came here? I’m not a fool.” (laughs)
“My beef with media, in general, is that they think they are so different and special … They can’t do the things the normal businesses do that we write about all the time.”
“Things like insist that a diverse field of candidates be considered … Have it be part of a manager’s compensation … Compensation tends to focus the mind … These are the kinds of things that we write about with the NFL or any other business that is about talent.”
On Naming her NPR program “Tell Me More”:
“We tried everything…We put out a contest to the listeners where if you could come up with the title, I will take you out to dinner … We put it on the web … We asked the [NPR] Board … We had a search team … We had brainstorming sessions where we got together with little stickers.”
On her weekly “Mocha Moms” segment:
“I am a parent…I just felt that there are parenting issues that so often do not get addressed … One of the things that drives me crazy is when I see these magazines that say things like ‘The Top 10 Most Live-able Cities’ and they never ask questions like ‘Is it diverse?’ … For me, that speaks to live-ability … Guess what, if a situation is not diverse, it is not going to be live-able for me.”
“When I think a lot about parenting issues, I find that they don’t think about the things that I need to think about as a parent of color.”
On her weekly “Barbershop” segment (with this author and other participants):
“On the ‘Barbershop’ piece, as a female host, it comes from my own feelings of being ‘disappeared’ as a woman.”
“When I was on ‘ABC Nightline,’ I was the only female correspondent out of four people.”
“As a female host, inevitably, it is going to be a lot of the woman’s perspective and I just wanted to make sure that the male voice was not ‘disappeared.’ I hope that doesn’t sound corny.”
“I just felt like [my show] was a very female space, and having it be a female place, I was missing the guys’ perspective. I think it’s a great balance with ‘Mocha Moms’ and with you guys on ‘Barbershop.'”
On Whether Racism or Sexism Is More Toxic in America today:
“I’m not into competitive suffering … I respect people who have an opinion about it, but frankly, I am very interested in data … And I think that data shows all kinds of things.”
“If you’re talking about a worldwide phenomenon, you’re going to have one answer … If you’re talking about an American context, you’re going to have different answers.”
In April 2008, NPR will be celebrating the one-year anniversary of “Tell Me More.” For her one-year anniversary as NPR host, Martin says they are going to continue to provide “special programming” to “deepen people’s understanding of the things that we already do” on a daily basis.
As she told me about an upcoming story that they were doing on a Native American hip-hop radio host “who is hilarious,” Martin summed up her radio show and why her continued presence on national public airwaves grows more vital and essential to our society today:
“We are just basically trying to let people know that there all kinds of people out here … Doing all kinds of things … Thinking all kinds of interesting thoughts,” says Martin.
“And they don’t necessarily look the way you think they do.”
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DiversityInc correspondent Arsalan Iftikhar appears weekly on National Public Radio’s “Barbershop” segment with Michel Martin.
www.diversityinc.com/public/3383.cfm
