ABOUT OUR LISTS

Deadlines breed expediency. We at Working Sources (WS) know that journalists with time constraints may reach for the more conventional experts, some of whom may lack the hands-on knowledge that comes from lived experience and be less likely to speak for underrepresented groups, including people of color, women and sexual and gender minorities. While some news organizations, including the BBC and NPR, have begun to encourage reporters and producers to find and include such sources, few databases exist to help the press bridge this information gap.

That’s where WS comes in. This directory includes experts who have both personal and professional experience with subjects ranging from drug addiction to wage discrimination. Below you’ll find specialists listed by category, as well as insights on how these sources — whose stories should be central to the conversation — can help identify and shed light on stories with unexpected and unconventional perspectives.

Look soon for more category lists as WS expands.

CARE

America is unique among economically advanced countries in its lack of supportive policies for families, such as paid leave or flexible work arrangements.

Our Care list includes day-care workers, paid-leave advocates, mothers’ support groups and experts in Latinx families. It was designed to help reporters find new, inventively selected, on-the-ground sources. We believe these voices can better express the dire situation in our country, which ranks behind most other wealthy nations for its spending on care. We believe that when media outlets include such voices and those of others with firsthand knowledge — as experts and not just anecdotally — readers and viewers can be moved to rethink their understanding of this subject.

Our experts share an awareness that the existing system is mainly a burden to women, many of whom are BIPOC. For this hard work, they’re paid poverty wages. Our experts also understand that families who utilize care networks are usually fending for themselves. We hope that this index, by providing context, will bridge the gap between how stories are being reported and how care is genuinely lived out.

DISABILITY

We compiled this list from a new generation of disabled people that has found a voice of witness, analysis, and advocacy in the hopes of helping journalists report stories that do not crib from the same old disability script. We sought perspectives as varied as disability itself and that are now available across the sectors of education, health care, technology, bioethics, law, medicine, history, social science, and social policy.

Our list puts experience into a critical dialogue with ideologies and institutions, challenging the disability narrative that emphasizes only difficulty, the search for cures, and pleas for accommodations. Our experts share a conviction that having a disability is not solely the product of physical or mental deficits but also of the many ways that medical, educational, and human services institutions fail to recognize and provide for actual needs.

DRUGS

Drug and addiction beats have been haunted by decades of political propaganda. To this day, some reporters may be unaware of how erroneous conventional wisdom about drugs can be.

We believe that better coverage could come from access to sources who eschew simplistic solutions. Some on our Drugs list, for instance, have used drugs themselves. Others are people of color who have experienced the way racism informs the policing of drugs. Still others have worked on reducing risky behaviors of I.V. users. In addition, because the current overdose crisis has profoundly hurt the valid administration of pain medications, this list includes sources who have been directly impacted by chronic suffering and recent opioid regulations.

These authorities often have uniquely personal insights into the way drugs and addiction are portrayed in the press. They also bring cross-disciplinary perspectives that can enrich media coverage. They’re likely to spark story ideas often overlooked by journalists reliant on more traditional sourcing.

ECONOMICS

Economists quoted in the mainstream media often mirror the discipline’s startling lack of diversity. As a 2016 report revealed, only one in sixteen tenure-track or tenured economists is a person of color. Those with the most media visibility tend to be attached to elite universities and think tanks, and reporters seeking more adversarial and original readings, or perspectives that incorporate and address diverse populations face a daunting task, especially on deadline.

In contrast, this list includes unconventional researchers and economists who study systemic fiscal inequities, such as the evolution of debt. We also have a diverse group in terms of race and gender.

We hope that this list will enable media coverage to comprise more than just those narratives dominated by mainstream financial institutions and quantitative economics. Instead, this list contains more nonconformist, unconventional thinkers, including scholars whose critical thinking leads them to prioritize social profitability and a just society.

HISTORY

History can reflect the collective memory of a community or a people. But recorded history, at its worst, can reinforce systems that have caused great harm.

Our list of History sources introduces the user to a wider range of experts than are generally quoted in the media, including scholars who reframe contentious topics and cut against the status quo.

These experts range from academics who study social movements to oral historians who preserve voices that would otherwise be lost to time. Theirs are fresh perspectives on areas from military history to reparations.

Many of these experts have been workers, activists and community members. All of them share a commitment to broadening the scope of our recorded memory.

HOUSING

The average news story about housing tends to feature sources who may represent industry concerns or be among the wealthiest renters and buyers. This distorts the accounts of tenants, homeowners and others who may lack the economic clout to be heard.

Many of our Working Sources experts have experienced housing insecurity or eviction. Some have benefited from housing programs. They may even have organized with their neighbors to improve conditions. They also tend to understand that the racial dynamics in our country affect where and how we live.

LABOR

The labor beat is making a comeback, thanks in part to renewed interest in unionization at Amazon, Starbucks, and white-collar media sectors. But not every publication has featured workers and organizers as experts in their own narratives.

For instance, labor coverage often excludes such sources in favor of powerful interests, minimizing the value of employees’ expertise in the companies where they work. And the labor advocates and academics quoted tend to be those with means, such as tenured Ivy League professors, rather than, say, community college faculty who may themselves have worked on a shop floor, been involved with a campaign for better wages or have different backgrounds or perspectives.

Our list gets up close and personal. Its range of sources includes gig workers, organizers, and nonprofits that educate, organize and fight for better conditions and justice in the workplace.

MILITARY

Our Military sources include veterans, military spouses, organizers, and thinkers too rarely heard in the mainstream media. They don’t include the traditional elite and sometimes jingoistic American military experts who are often quoted by reporters. Many of our experts have experienced conflicts as service members or advisers, while others have complementary, firsthand knowledge of U.S. military interventions and their aftereffects.

All of our sources share a deep commitment to moving beyond patriotic platitudes or chess-like abstractions. The experts here believe that emphasizing the human cost of war — on all sides — matters most.