Ellington

A few weeks ago — proud of the work we had accomplished with the paper’s redesign and focus on enterprise storytelling — I sent out copies of The Daily to be critiqued by professional newsrooms. The staff members of a major metropolitan newspaper responded with a very comprehensive critique, one of them pointing out a somewhat taboo topic in workplace environments.

“By Page 10, I’ve already counted seven personal columns all written by white males,” this critic wrote. “Surely you can have better representation of the campus than that.”

Although the comment was inaccurate — one of the people he referred to is actually Korean-American, and had he read further he would have seen columns from women as well — the critique still made a lot of our staff members pause and reflect. Was our lack of diversity hurting our coverage of the community we strive to serve? A few members of the staff, myself included, felt uncomfortable that our gender and race could so easily discredit our work. Another important question was prevalent in my mind: How many minority staff members does the newsroom need to have before it can be considered diverse?

The issue went on the back burner for a few weeks until we ran a story on the UW’s homecoming celebration, and how this year there was no funding for a homecoming rally. The story focused on the change in the celebration from years past and didn’t mention the homecoming court. After the story was published, we received e-mails from community members calling into question whether or not the race of one of this year’s participants had been the reason we had not mentioned the winners in the article. From what we could gather, the homecoming queen was the second black woman to hold that title in the university’s history.

The idea that race had anything to do with our lack of coverage is not true, but it was troubling. If there’s one thing I’ve learned since working in journalism, it’s that perception of coverage is often just as important as — if not more than — the coverage itself. If members of our community feel their paper can’t serve them, there is a problem.

So what’s the solution? In trying to address the issue, the most obvious answer is to hire a more diverse staff, but this does not necessarily ensure a different type of coverage when it comes to diversity issues.

While exploring the topic, I came across an interesting study that articulated this point.

Theodore L. Glasser is a professor in the Department of Communication at Stanford University and the co-author of a study titled “The Claims of Multiculturalism and Journalism’s Promise of Diversity.” The study examined newspapers in San Jose, Calif., regarding how mainstream media and ethnic media differ on the issues of diversity and discrimination.

Glasser makes an important distinction between diversity across newsrooms as opposed to diversity in newsrooms.

“Diversity across newsrooms promises more than a heightened sensitivity to cultural differences. It broadens the base of journalism by putting new, more and different people in control of it. Diversity across newsrooms strengthens the role of minority media in their struggle to achieve the social justice and political parity that self-governance demands,” he said.

To me, that means that instead of hiring reporters from minority groups on campus that may be lacking coverage, we should respect the autonomy of these groups and work with them to help the diversity of our content. Simply hiring reporters who fit into “diverse” demographics will not do enough to ensure that our coverage is sensitive to the issues that affect different communities because ultimately the reporters, regardless of their race, gender or sexual orientation, would ascribe to The Daily’s institutional goals. This means looking at an issue objectively, without personal bias or influence. Glasser explained this issue in an interview with New America Media, saying, “Journalism trivializes diversity when it focuses only — or even mostly — on diversifying newsrooms, especially when minority journalists are told, for reasons of professionalism, not to let their minority interests and perspectives influence their reporting and writing.”

Point in fact, the reporter who covered the UW homecoming rally, a story that was thought by some to be racially affected, is a minority herself. The fact that she is a minority did not ensure her seeing anything another reporter might have missed. The answer to more comprehensive coverage, therefore, is that we should be communicating better with different groups of students and community members.

There are a few different ways we are attempting to do this. One way is by holding open editorial-board meetings. We hold them in our newsroom in Communications Room 132 every other Thursday at 5 p.m. The next meeting will be next Tuesday, a week from today, since we don’t have school that Thursday. These meetings are something new that we are implementing this quarter for the sole purpose of community interaction. We invite community members to come in and discuss our coverage, as well as submit ideas for staff-editorial topics and campus issues we should be looking into.

Another is a community-oriented blog site we are hoping to have fully functioning by winter quarter. The Daily is looking for bloggers to represent different groups on campus. If you’re interested in representing a group or applying for a blog, you should e-mail me at editor@dailyuw.com.

This, however, doesn’t mean we don’t value diversity in the newsroom. We hire new writers every quarter to make sure fresh voices and opinions are continually a part of the production process. Any current UW student who wants to apply can find applications online at dailyuw.com or apply in person in Communications Room 132. I would strongly encourage you to come meet our editors in person if you would like to apply.

Diversity in the newsroom is always to be valued, but diversity is more than race. It is your background, your major, your financial situation, and your future goals, among a myriad of other different circumstances. In that sense, The Daily has always been a diverse setting in my time here. However, we need to be careful to make sure we’re not forgetting that no matter how diverse or homogenous the newsroom is, there are always different perspectives and issues to be aware of. Only by being open to discussion and criticism can we ever hope to accurately address them.

I promise to take every critique seriously and to work with my staff so that we may have the most comprehensive coverage of our community that we can.

Reach Editor-in-Chief Casey Smith at editor@dailyuw.com.