Commitment to Diversity
Introduction
Diversity is at the core of everything I do. As a reporter, I search for stories of underrepresented communities in the hopes of amplifying voices uncommonly seen in the media. As a manager, I ensure that each article my writers produce takes into account a diverse variety of viewpoints, representing each group fully and accurately. As an editor, I create initiatives to expand diverse coverage — using blacklists and a streamlined story-pitch system to report on every single individual in the Ladue community.
Source Surveys
During my senior year, I spoke to a student who felt that the ID Magazine wasn't accurately covering her perspective. She spoke of others that had experienced the same concerns — moments that the Ladue Publications staff wasn't aware of. To catch circumstances such as these, and ensure we are accurately reporting on each person in our school, I implemented source surveys. These were little papers — almost like business cards — that reporters would give to their interviewees alongside the completed story. They amplified the bond between interviewer-interviewee, creating a connection that went beyond a singular transactional interview.
School-wide Polls
It's no secret that the journalism community, particularly at the scholastic level, often attracts the same type of people. Too often, our reporters resort to interviewing those they are close to — their friends and teachers. To ensure that we're reaching outside of this bubble and enriching each story with the diversity of perspectives present within our student body, Ladue Publications sends out a monthly poll that asks students everything from their ramen cooking abilities to political beliefs. We use this data to make charts and graphs, informing our reporting to cover as many perspectives as physically possible.
Maintaining a Blacklist
In an effort to cover all members of the Ladue community, I created this blacklist as executive editor in chief, detailing the students, teachers clubs and classes that we've covered. At the same time that reporters send their interviewees the source surveys, they check off the "Covered?" column, which literally 'blacks out' the entire row. This makes sure that we're branching out, covering all aspects of our student body without bias.
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Read more here.
(Solely club is pictured due to privacy concerns.)
ID Magazine
The ID magazine was created with one goal in mind: to represent the student body accurately and fully, accounting for racial, cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds. When producing ID's third-ever issue as the executive editor in chief, ID's EICs and I realized that the issue was abysmally failing to properly cover our student body 5 days before our deadline. We had 15 stories total, with a four female-11 male breakdown — but our school featured a 49% female and 51% male enrollment. We sprang into action, assigning four stories to be written and designed in the short time we still had. To ensure that issues like this never arose again, I created a spreadsheet to track diversity. Now, we're more cognizant of the different viewpoints present — we anticipate and use them to create a magazine that's just as diverse as our student body.
Diversity in Reporting
No matter the cultural breakdowns of a community, students of color often feel marginalized and cast aside. To shine a light on these individuals, I wrote about the prevalence of mispronouncing names. It was an issue that I myself had struggled with, having rarely been referred to with the proper pronunciation. These stories were read by the community — teachers made a visible effort to correct their pronunciations while taking attendance, especially.
In this story, I uncovered another aspect of diversity: socioeconomic differences. At Ladue High School, my peers and I are privileged enough to have working facilities when we need them and instructors certified to teach 14 AP classes. But that's not the case for many of St. Louis' 109 public high schools — in fact, many have teachers that are forced to print at the local library or students that sleep through class because they worked 14-hour shifts the night before. By uplifting these communities, I hoped to make my readers more conscientious of St. Louis' diversity.