At Minerva, we understand that to put out fresh and balanced ideas, we need to diversify the information and perspectives we take in. And we take our information diets seriously.
A few years ago, Sara committed to reading more novels and nonfiction books written by women of color—ensuring that these authors make up at least 50 percent of her reading list—while Joy makes sure that her Twitter feed incorporates diversity of political perspectives to avoid the echo chamber effect. Catherine often consumes media in Spanish, seeking out Latinx perspectives, and Malia finds herself with dozens of podcasts “on her list” to search out new ways to have hard conversations.
While we each have different approaches, we know that the more diverse our inputs, the smarter and more novel our outputs will become. Sometimes these voices even include our seemingly from-a-different-planet parents, but we choose to listen. Follow along to see some of our favorite inputs that might not yet be on your radar.
On our screens
Blogs and television alike still hold their own in our media consumption
The ONLY platform highlighting the intersection of politics, policy, & people of color. For bonus points, follow their co-founder, Tiffany Cross on Twitter—as a woman of color she adds an essential perspective to national hot-topic conversations.
For the local updates, and to see what Latinxs around Seattle find important, Catherine’s bilingual household will tune into Univision Seattle. However, when it comes to Latin America news, and more global perspectives on US politics, CNN en Español is her go–to.
In our ears
If you haven’t jumped on the podcast bandwagon yet, now might be the time to check out some of these recommendations
Call Your Girlfriend—Or CYG for those in the know
This podcast’s hosts and producers are all women, and write on their site, “women sharing their experiences with each other is a potentially life-changing act. It’s also really fucking fun.” We couldn’t agree more.
The New York Times’ 1619 series
This series flips the common script of “White America,” putting the contributions of Black Americans at the center of our origin and culture—where they belong.
As implied by its name, The Daily, produced by the New York Times, goes out every weekday—mostly about current events, with investigative reporting pieces incorporated throughout. Some have complained the Times being guilty of “bothsideism,” giving equal weight to two sides that are not worthy of being held equally. Lately, the podcast gave a whole episode to the perspective of Harvey Weinstein’s lawyer. While we disagreed vehemently with the lawyer’s position, it was an exercise in hearing out both sides. Malia and Sara are both religious listeners and are always ready to discuss the latest episode.
Hosted and produced by reporters of color at NPR, Code Switch takes tough discussions on race and embraces them. If you’re looking for a good place to start, their Racial Imposter Syndrome episode is one of their most popular, and our favorite!
Produced by NPR and hosted by reporter extraordinaire Maria Hinojosa. It provides insights into the lives of Latinxs in the US, and how different political, cultural, social issues affect their lives. Stories are from the Latinx perspective and give a clear picture of their diverse experiences in the US.
In our inboxes
Why search out media when you can have it e-hand delivered to your inbox?
This daily e-newsletter sent by the JHU Bloomberg School of Public Health acts as a news aggregator plus some original content. It includes a few in-depth stories about global health topics plus quick-read links. They provide a health mix of headline news (corona virus for now), plus thought provoking pieces on gender bias in hiring and promotions in science.
The origin happens to be just outside our office. Our friends at the Washington Global Health Alliance come out with Field Notes, a digest of each month’s news in the growing Washington global health world. We can always count on them for a conversational tone, making the sometimes heavy, complex global health topics accessible and fun to read.
Quartz Africa is one of the best sources of news from the continent. A daily e-blast that highlights a health selection of original Quartz content from the continent and this is weighed towards business/economics stories. Most of their reporters are African including their editor, Yinka Adegoke (bonus for following him on Twitter!) Their insightful reporting goes deep and offers far more variety than most US media headlines about African poverty, disease, violence, despair, political corruption.
In the Twittersphere
Twitter is a big piece of our team’s media intake. We encourage you to check out who we follow! We stay wary of Twitter’s echo chamber effect, but also see it as a great resource for unfiltered perspectives.
Our Twitter account has its own list of followees, but our individual accounts are as follows:
Joy: @JoyPortella
Sara: @SVeltkamp
Catherine: @kattsg
Malia: @malia_mackey
Finally, if you have any recommendations for what we should add to our diets, we’re all ears. DM us on Twitter with recommendations.
