Tash’s sentiment of staff diversity was echoed by Gerald M. Boyd, deputy managing editor of news for The New York Times.

Boyd, who supervised the Times’ Pulitzer Prize-winning series on “How Race is Lived in America,” added that diversity must also be complemented by honest discussion of difficult issues surrounding race.

“Unless we find a way to really talk about these issues honestly, we won’t move forward,” Boyd said.

The panel also discussed how the media’s failure to contextualize race-related stories contributed to faulty coverage. Robert M. Entman, Professor and Head of Communications at North Carolina State University, specifically cited the failure of local news media to provide proper contexts in stories involving race.

“Absent proper contextualization, racial and ethnic tensions will continue,” Entman said. “Without context, false inferences are likely.”

Evidence for these false inferences was provided by Robert Blendon, a KSG professor of health policy and political analysis.

Blendon cited a recent survey about the wide separation of perceptions of the black experience by both black and white citizens and called on the media to narrow this gulf with more balanced coverage.