Blog written by Jaldeep Katwala, Director of the Sir Lenny Henry Centre for Media Diversity.
Journalists are meant to be like a piece of grit in your eye - that small, persistent irritant that forces you to stop, blink, and pay attention to what you might otherwise see straight past.
As a first timer at the International Journalism Festival, which has just concluded in Perugia, I have no benchmark to gauge this 20th edition against. But I set out to ask one question. Does diversity, equality and inclusion matter to the thousands of people gathered in Umbria to discuss the state of international journalism?
A search for diversity in the 2026 festival programme returned one result - in Italian. It was a panel where diversity only appeared because it features in the job title of one of the speakers, Pasquale Quaranta, Italy's first Diversity Editor.
Compare that with 2022, in the aftermath of Black Lives Matter. That year, Marcus Ryder, one of the team who set up the Sir Lenny Henry Centre for Media Diversity, K Biswas, Editor of Representology, Joseph Harker of The Guardian and Eva Simpson of the Daily Mirror discussed why diversity isn't changing newsroom culture. There were seven other panels on diversity that year.
Last year there was a session called "Am I Black enough for you?" This year, Black journalists organised their own event: "Black Beyond Borders: a global town hall on journalism, identity, and resistance." The progression tells its own story - from institutions leading the conversation to communities creating their own spaces within it.
A similar search for disability finds only three panel events since 2012. In a medieval city of cobbled streets and steep hills, I only saw one festival attendee in a wheelchair. That's not surprising, but it doesn't make access for all easy.
There were panels on neurodivergence and gender-just journalism, the latter producing the memorable quote from Egyptian journalist Mona Eltahawy that we should be destroying the "octopus of patriarchy."
One of the most striking sessions examined mainstream journalism's failure to reach poor and marginalised audiences. It was a powerful case for greater inclusivity at entry levels and throughout journalism. As Shirish Kulkarni of Media Cymru put it: "The literal job of journalists is to look beyond their experience."
The standout moment of the festival, though, was not a quote or a panel. A South African journalist, who had faced death threats, thanked Fergal Keane for saving her life - through his candour and courage in speaking publicly about his struggles with mental health. It was raw human emotion that left many in the theatre in tears, including me. In that moment, the grit in the eye made an entire room blink.
So does diversity, equality and inclusion matter at the International Journalism Festival? The International Journalism Festival has done a remarkable job over 20 years. But journalists are supposed to be the grit in the eye - not the ones blinking it away. On the evidence of IJF 2026, diversity, equality and inclusion have been blinked away. That should irritate all of us.