Commitment to Diversity
This is HHS Media's mission statement:
As student-run publications, HHS Media strives to tell the stories of our peers through fair and accurate reporting. We are a diverse group of student journalists led by student editors who aspire to inform and entertain our community in a timely manner. We hold ourselves to professional and ethical standards as we report the truth. Our publications operate as public forums that encourage community engagement. Overall, HHS Media aims to amplify voices without bias because every person has a story; we just tell them.
In order to honor our mission of informing our community in an accurate and ethical way our staff has to look like the stories we are telling. The commitment to diversity starts with the staff.
Celebrating Our Diversity
Newspaper Special Edition
The first thing I did when I took over my Editor in Chief role was lead my staff through the publication of a special edition of our newspaper. The main focus: Celebrating Diversity.
Editor's Note: When given the opportunity to print a full color issue, the first in the program’s history, we knew we had to make it special. Coming off of a freshly finished yearbook focused on the uniqueness of our school, we thought about how we could use print color to our advantage. We decided on the special feature topic “Celebrating Our Diversity.” We decided to focus on a few things in particular: race, ethnicity, gender identity, culture and socioeconomic status.
This feature critically evaluated how well our journalism staff covers students, admin, teachers and community members from all backgrounds, with the goal of making our reporting more inclusive in the future. We hope this feature provides an insight into the uniqueness of the student body within the cinder block walls of Harrisonburg High School and how we can all better support each other as a community.
This cover went through A LOT of revision. Originally I thought of unique ways to show parts of different people as one cohesive face. I though it might accurately imitate what I experience on a day to day basis---a diverse student body that creates one strong high school unit. However, I realized in trying to crop all the faces together I lost the individual uniqueness of each student. HHS's strength is in our differences. Our diversity is our power and I think this cover reflects that.
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) Certification
At the 2023 "Spotlight on Journalism" JEA/NSPA journalism conference in Boston. I took advantage of the new opportunity to receive my DEI certification. I went to the following classes:
- See Us, Hear Us by Sergio Yanes
- Developing a Commitment to Diversity by Sarah Nichols
- Who are we covering? Who is on staff? Who cares? by David Ragsdale
- Umbrella Coverage Deepens School Connectedness by Janet Ewell
Here are some of my key takeaways
(this might give you some insight into my broken note taking methods):
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Your media has to look like your school and your community
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Our audiences want their perspectives accurately reflected in their media
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RETHINK DIVERSITY - visible and invisible, think iceberg
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You can’t just throw people on pages and say you are prioritizing diversity, it is a choice you have to make everyday
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The individuals that we include also have to feel like they BELONG, are able to participate, and are authentic
Coverage Ideas:
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Start with the visuals
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Unified Sports: remove the help aspect, they are not helpless
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Angles that center marginalized voices
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Accurate pronouns and names in copy: make all students fill out a form on Friday advisory to choose preferred name and pronouns
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Translation services - honor the original language, can use the ones in the community
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Newcomer broadcast episode - add subtitles
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Spanish language in yearbook and online news
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Be careful not to “other” groups
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It all starts with the staff
Strategies:
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Coverage audits
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Focus groups - Ask “What has kept you from being interviewed?” “What more do you want to see from us?”
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In-building expert support
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Forms to collect names/pronouns
DIVERSITY IS A FACT, BUT INCLUSION IS A CHOICE WE MAKE EVERY DAY
Walking my staff through DEI training
Personal Identity Training
Definitions of Diversity
Crafting a "Commitment to Diversity Statement"
At the NHSJC in Boston I did the "Waterline of Visibility" activity with David Ragsdale. The activity made me realize just how limited my definition of diversity was. My staff, when considering diversity in our coverage almost immediately went to racial diversity 90% of the time. I had all of my staffers complete this activity as soon as I got home from the conference. We continue to prioritize diversifying our coverage, but in a much broader sense. We now consider making sure spreads or newspaper pages have students of different genders, grades, reading levels, socioeconomic status, as well as disability and ELL students represented.
Before brainstorming our commitment to diversity statement it was important that we come up with one staff definition of diversity. I led my staff through a long discussion, after which we wrote our staff definition on a sticky note. We have it on our main planning board as a reminder of what our duty is as student journalists.
After I lead my own staff in defining their identities and defining diversity we did two things.
1: Debunking our own biases. I had each staff member guess the demographic breakdown of our school to see how well we truly knew who we were covering. After, we did an in-depth study of the breakdown and where we fell short.
2: Crafting the statement. I created the handouts seen below. In pairs our staff filled out and discussed the form. After the discussion, I compiled the writing and everything I had researched to craft HHS Media's very own Commitment to Diversity Statement.
Newspaper Special Edition (pt. 2)
After I led my staff through DEI training, we sat down to discuss what the second issue of our newspaper would be. After a lot of brainstorming, we decided on the topic "What Makes You, You?" Instead of focusing on diversity that is visible, like race, gender or age, we focused on the diversity of interests at our school. HHS Media's motto is "Every person has a story" and with this issue, we really tried to let that shine. The pages hold a variety of interests from Boy Scouts, to photographers, to students with their own businesses.
Maximizing Coverage
With the yearbook, we always set the lofty goal of covering every person at least 3x. Last year we achieved a record-setting 30% of our school covered 3x and everyone covered once. We are well on our way to doing even more this year.
One strategy we use when trying to cover as many students as possible is assigning each staff member 20 students in the school. It's that staff members job to make sure that student is covered and mark where they appeared as seen above.
Another strategy is the "Do Not Cover" list. Whenever someone is covered 3x in the book, they are added to the list so we prioritize covering different students instead. There will always be students who are a part of every extracurricular, but in a school of 2000 there will always be other students to cover. No one student should be seen on every other page of the yearbook.
Last year, I analyzed our newspaper coverage by looking at who appeared in photos and stories over the past two school years. Click the button to read the report.
This year, one of my incredible co-editors, Jumana Alsaadoon, mimicked this by creating another coverage report for our newspaper, website and Instagram. Click the button to read the report.
***From both of these reports, we determine that our coverage was over 30% more white than our school. Not only that, but we also covered little of the LGBTQ+ community, our English Language Learners Program, the Special Education program and many JV sports teams. Our staff needed a big wakeup call. We continue to review these reports and work for more diverse and inclusive coverage in the future.
More of HHS Media's Work
It cannot be stressed enough that the commitment to diversity starts with the staff. To the left you will see just a few of the many stories written by my staff and I. It has been my privilege to report alongside such talented writers that are committed to reporting the truth and showcasing the unique diversity of our school. HHS is vibrant community of learners, athletes, artists, friends, musicians and so much more. Our motto at HHS Media rings particularly true for the discussion of the commitment to diversity: "Every person has a story. We tell them."