Lack of diversity within the journalism field is reflected in this year’s NCSMA Institute and in journalism classrooms across the state
By Eden Mae Richman, Riverside High School ’23
As he gathered with journalism students from across the state for this year’s NC Scholastic Media Association Summer Institute, Max Poku-Kankam, East Mecklenburg High ’23, noticed the classrooms and auditoriums were filled overwhelmingly with white faces.
“It feels like I have an obligation to represent people of color in journalism,” Poku-Kankam said. “It feels very pressuring, but I’m also proud to be a person of color in the majority white journalism field.”
The lack of diversity at the Summer Institute is emblematic of the industry as a whole. About 77 percent of newsroom employees are non-Hispanic whites, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of American Community Service data from 2012 through 2016.
“(The lack of diversity at the institute) is not surprising, it’s like this every year,” said Livis Freeman, director of the Chuck Stone Program for Diversity in Education and Media and a teaching professor at the UNC Hussman School of Media and Journalism. “It kind of reflects the way the industry is.”
This extends to the Student Leadership Board, who is in charge of planning the institute and designating an annual theme.
“There definitely is a lack of diversity on the board in every way,” said Kaitlyn Meehan ’22, student officer president and editor-in-chief of The Eagle at East Mecklenburg High School. This year’s board consists solely of white female students from suburban schools, Meehan said.
Despite being one of few journalists of color at the Institute, Poku-Kankam said he felt welcome. “I still feel included and represented like an equal,” he said. “People don’t see color here, they see me as another journalist.”
NCSMA Addresses Diversity
Poku-Kankam’s observations do not go unseen by program leadership, NCSMA Director Monica Hill said.
“There is a large number of white young women among those taking part in scholastic journalism, and so for this to to face this moment, we all need to take a look at that and take a look at our outreach,” Hill said. “It’s important that we’re always working toward diversity, equity and inclusion. And that’s why we have to pay attention to access and belonging, and to think about how we make our programs available to students and teachers across the state, and make certain that when they participate, they feel that they have a real part of what we do.”
Some of the efforts to improve access include a tuition waiver program and scholarships to mitigate financial barriers to attending the institute.
“This year, we had a terrific opportunity to offer a waiver program to some schools, and that allowed a couple of schools that have never attended to join us this year,” Hill said. “I think it’s important that we really focus on efforts like that, and to always be aware of the audience that we’re reaching, but more importantly, the audience we’re not reaching.”
Other efforts include reaching students where they are, especially those who do not have the privilege of traveling to UNC for the institute, Hill said. NCSMA co-hosts regional workshops throughout the state at regional universities. Regional workshops will resume in person this October, Hill said.
“We never want to give a message to a student or a teacher that they have to come to Chapel Hill to engage with their state’s High School Press Association,” Hill said.
Additionally, UNC provides residential programs that primarily serve diverse populations of students, specifically the Chuck Stone Program for Diversity in Education and Media. Each year, the program brings 12 rising seniors to UNC’s campus to teach them journalism, leadership and media skills.
“(The journalism industry) is slower than others to become diverse,” Freeman said. “That’s why programs like Chuck Stone are out there, to show these students the power they can hold if they pursue journalism. Because the field is traditionally not diverse, they don’t see people that look like them in positions of power to inform them about the power of their voice and the power of their pen.”
The workshop’s namesake, Chuck Stone, was a trailblazing Black journalist and later professor at UNC. He was the first president of the National Association of Black Journalists, and worked tirelessly throughout his career to mentor and lift up journalists of color.
“The most important thing is that everyone is represented and heard,” Freeman said. “As our country moves towards being more diverse and minorities become majorities, it is more important than ever that stories are told by everbody and for everybody. The most important thing for me is getting this point across to youth, which starts in high school. We need more high school programs, like Chuck Stone, to do this.”
High Schools Aim to Diversify Journalism Classes
Like NCSMA, many journalism classrooms across the state are working to involve a diverse cross-section of their student body.
“I took over the newspaper in 2006,” said Bill Allen, journalism adviser at East Mecklenburg High School. “When I walked into the room, I saw that I had six students. And they were all white. Our school, even at that time, was minority-majority. We were a Black majority school. And so I said, ‘This has to change.’”
East Mecklenburg High School is one of the most diverse schools in the state, boasting students from 31 countries, and who speak 42 languages, Allen said. In recent years, this diversity has only increased. In the past five years, Allen said that the population of Hispanic students has grown from 5 percent of the student body to 25 percent.
Allen believes that today his journalism class accurately represents the school community.
“What we do is we make it known that people are welcome,” Allen said. “People already know that partly because of who I am, because I came out as gay about nine years ago. But the main thing is that kids understand that there’s a safe space, and that I’m willing to work with kids who don’t always fit in the box. And so I like quirky people. I like kids who are different, because newspaper rooms should reflect the whole campus.”
Allen believes this is essential to ensure quality journalism and authentic coverage of the school community.
“Diversity is everything,” he said. “If we don’t have people in the newsroom to understand the differences culturally, ethnically, and linguistically that our students face, then we’re not going to be able to accurately cover our school. We need those kids on staff so that we can get the full perspective of the school.”
The cyclical nature of high school can present an extra challenge to maintain progress on diversity. Adviser Anna Saunders saw the most diversity in her journalism classroom in New Brunswick County back in 2018.
“I was just so proud of the hard work I had done to really make our newsroom more reflective of our student body,” Saunders said. “But then scheduling [conflicts] conflicts happened, and the class got really small. And it also got really white and female.”
This past semester, there was only one student of color on the newspaper staff.
“My editor is Latina, and she was my only student of color last year. She was like, ‘I didn’t realize it until we went to take our picture the other day, and I looked at it and I was the only person of color in the picture,’” Saunders said. “And I can only imagine how alienating that is, to feel like you’re the only person who can really tell your story in this classroom.”
Saunders had many conversations with students about how to accurately cover their community.
“We talked about how are we, as a non-diverse classroom, able to reflect the intricacies of our student body when we don’t experience them,” she said.
One of the solutions was to ensure that the staff interview a wide variety of students.
“I worked really hard to make sure that my kids were not just interviewing in their friend groups,” Saunders said. “We started a policy where in our student directory, we put a tally beside each person we had interviewed each time we interviewed them, so that way, if someone got three interviews, we can’t interview that person anymore. They’ve been covered enough.”
The lack of diversity in journalism class can be partially attributed to the way tracks are organized at West Brunswick High School, Saunders said, with limited scheduling space for electives.
“Journalism is considered an academic elective,” Saunders said. “But the students who do the academic pathway are kids who typically take AP classes.”
This year more than ever, Saunders tried to recruit students outside of this pathway to get them involved in journalism.
“I’ve worked really actively in non-honors classrooms, trying to encourage kids to take my journalism class,” she said. “I got my list in for next year, and it’s looking like it’s a little more reflective of our student body.”