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By Hannah Underwood, West Brunswick High School

According to the Maynard Institute, in 1978, only 4% of journalists in newsrooms nationwide were people of color. In 2008, the figure stood at 13.5%.

Photo from Unsplash

“I think it’s best if the newsroom reflects the student body at large,” said Watauga High School Adviser Jamie Wilson. “Whatever the case may be, whether that’s gender, race or sexual orientation.”

With the goal of increasing diversity, student journalists are faced with many challenges. Here are just a few ways that you can work to increase the diversity in your own journalism programs:

Leave your comfort zone

Many programs give their students a loose reign on what they choose to write about. Encourage students to pick something that they may not be as familiar with to broaden their horizons, in addition to broadening the scope of the content that your classes are producing.

“I pick what I feel isn’t as touched on,” said Jesus Flores, a student journalist at Northern High School. “There’s some stuff that people don’t know a lot about, and I’d rather people at least be a little more informed than they were before.”

The best people to go to when trying to adjust your audience is the audience themselves, so working with the people who are consuming your product produces the best results and allows for more diverse and specific stories.

“We really work to try and figure out as much as we can about what’s going on around the school building,” said Andy Bowman of North Buncombe High. “I think it’s about working with our student body as well, to try and figure out what they want and what we can do to help keep them engaged and bring information to them.”

Make sure your sources reflect your school

In local news, outlets are beginning to implement source tracking tools or ways to ensure their coverage is reflective of their community. One organization, Chalkbeat, partnered with the Reynolds Journalism Institute, to try and combat diversity issues within the newsroom, called the Source Diversity Tracking Tool. This tool is available to the general public as a way to examine the diversity of small newsrooms.

Many programs try to diversify their content with input from students and staff to find out what they both want and need to hear. This method widens the pool of choice for the student journalist. This still in its own way limits writing to the population of the student body.

“I try to investigate to cater to different types of people within the school by writing about lesser-known organizations,” future Editor in Chief Anthony Frederick said. “Trying to reach out to different types of people and getting the people we have now to start thinking about what they can do as well.”

While diversity in the newsroom is important, learning how to step out of your comfort zone and learn and delve into new cultures, experiences and opportunities allows for diversified content.

“By having more diversity and having more people to potentially talk to, it’s a reminder of what you’re actually doing this for,” Frederick said. “I feel like it helps you do your job better.”