Commitment to diversity
Clarke Central High School is a very diverse school, around 45% Black, 25% White, and 25% Hispanic. As the former News Editor, and now as the Digital Managing Editor, and the primary gatekeeper for what goes onto our website, I have to be particularly conscious of making sure the full diversity of Clarke Central is represented within the news section. Our news room is significantly less diverse than our school, so it has to be a constant dialogue how we can better and more conscientiously represent our school.
Here I have a graph of the demographics of my sources that I’ve interviewed over my sophomore, junior and senior year so far. A challenge at Clarke Central is being deliberate about getting diverse sources, which has been particularly challenging in a digital environment.
Here I have a graph of the gender of my sources that I’ve interviewed over my sophomore, junior and senior year so far. As I have written a variety of stories focusing primarily on female voices, including a story about a Women's Rally, and about female students in the classroom, my stakeholders skew more female.
Diversity policy
As the Digital Managing Editor, I try to keep diversity at the forefront of our goals. We have a specific goal for the diversity of our coverage - 50% Black student voices represented, 30% White student voices represented, and 20% Hispanic students represented. This is not always a goal we hit, but it is something we talk to our editors about so they can communicate with their staff. Whenever I am writing a story and need a student voice, I always make sure that I am getting a diverse student voice if possible.
Separate worlds
Separate worlds is a story about students of different races self-segregating and not interacting at Clarke Central. This story required me to talk to students from all sorts of backgrounds and be deliberate about representation. I had to carefully consider the racial aspect of the story and make sure to phrase my questions in a way that people felt comfortable answering. Click on the picture to read the story.
Deliberate diversity
As the former News Editor of my publication, I had to be deliberate about making sure the news section has a diverse range of sources. With a primarily white staff and a majority Black student body, we have run into pitfalls with representation before. My staff had a specific diversity goal in each of our stories. Here I have my notes from our Cycle 1 diversity discussion. Over the course of the year, my staff increased to having 60% of our student voices be people of color.
Previously interviewed list
Each cycle, we keep a record of everyone we interview and facts about them, including position, gender, and race. It helps us to ensure we have a wide range of sources and don't repeat them, and lets us look back to see our diversity stats and what we can improve on.
