Diversity Toolbox
November 23rd, 2018 • Quill Blog, Quill Archives, Diversity, Diversity Toolbox
Covering social movements: Learn the community, relay context
Journalists and Baltimore residents have suggested ways to improve coverage of protests and social movements, such as those that followed the arrest and death of Freddie Gray in the city three years ago. Baltimore officers alleged Gray, a 25-year-old black man, had an illegal knife when they arrested him after a chase.
February 17th, 2016 • Quill Archives, Diversity Toolbox
Diversity Toolbox
As founder and editor of All Digitocracy, Tracie Powell keeps a close eye on media and its impact on diverse communities. Powell has not only reported and edited for more than a decade, she also has master’s degree in law and served as a legal clerk for the U.S.
August 17th, 2015 • Quill Archives, Diversity Toolbox
Diversity Toolbox
Among the many problems facing journalism today is the great divide developing between newsrooms and the communities they serve. It is fairly certain that a growing number of newsrooms and their managers are not and will not be prepared to deal with America’s changing landscape.
April 3rd, 2015 • Quill Archives, Diversity Toolbox
Diversity Toolbox
Racism is a hard truth in American society. It is our inheritance, built into America’s history of slavery, lynching, and unequal treatment in law enforcement. And it is our present, through the unspoken, unacknowledged biases we may abhor but unconsciously still carry with us.
February 3rd, 2015 • Quill Archives, Diversity Toolbox
Diversity Toolbox
Stunned by the brutal massacre at Charlie Hebdo magazine, journalists and citizens around the world mourned. Many proclaimed, “Je Suis Charlie” in solidarity. The massive march Jan. 11 in Paris made the most powerful statement of all. Jews, Muslims, atheists and others across a spectrum of beliefs and politics walked together “to shout their love for liberty and tolerance,” as Prime Minister Manuel Valls told the Guardian.
October 22nd, 2014 • Quill Archives, Diversity Toolbox
Diversity Toolbox
Let’s face it: The moment news gatherers take on a story that turns on racial justice, most of them contend with a severe lack of trust. Americans are only half convinced that the news media are ever worth their confidence, according to survey data.
September 2nd, 2014 • Quill Archives, Diversity Toolbox
Diversity Toolbox
“Good enough” isn’t good enough if you are a data journalist. Even “accurate” isn’t good enough. When you’re working with data, it’s important to run it through a bias filter at every stage. That’s what three highly regarded investigative journalists insisted as we prepared for a panel on the ethics of working with data at the Investigative Reporters and Editors conference in June.
June 20th, 2014 • Quill Archives, Diversity Toolbox
Diversity Toolbox
In December 2012, a young man walked into Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., and killed 26 people, 20 of them children. We later learned that he’d killed his mother before going to the school. His many issues relating to social isolation came out in the following months, including the fact that he had Asperger’s syndrome, which is an autism spectrum disorder.
December 20th, 2013 • Quill Archives, Diversity Toolbox
Diversity Toolbox
Red state, blue state. White, black. Old, young. Citizen, immigrant. Journalists and their audiences seem to live in a world of opposites, with not much information in between. Observing the dichotomies that dominated coverage of the government shutdown, the Affordable Care Act, immigration and countless other topics, I’m reminded of a classic essay by developmental biologist Anne Fausto-Sterling.
October 16th, 2013 • Quill Archives, Diversity Toolbox
Diversity Toolbox
Brace yourself. Reports on women and people of color in the news tend to depress. But the latest compilation of data may coax you into a tiny bit of a smile. Investigative reporting, that high-status bastion of male dominance in the news business, is opening up, according to data in the Women’s Media Center’s The Status of Women in the Media 2013 report.
September 5th, 2013 • Quill Archives, Diversity Toolbox
Diversity Toolbox
What’s the foundation of great reporting? Sure, smart questions and careful listening. But underpinning all but the rare, confrontational interview is one key ingredient: trust. That’s one reason journalists gravitate toward familiar faces. We develop our reliable, go-to sources and on a breaking story, quickly identify who is likely to be responsive and credible in the crowd.
June 6th, 2013 • Quill Archives, Diversity Toolbox
Diversity Toolbox
It has been happening a lot lately: Native Americans misrepresented in the media, often with animal images. Whether it is Michelle Williams’ Another Magazine photo shoot where she is dressed as a Native American in a wolf-like costume or a former Minnesota TV news director posting on Facebook an “Indian and other animals” are on his front lawn, once again Native Americans are being described in media as anything but human.
April 10th, 2013 • Quill Archives, Diversity Toolbox
Diversity Toolbox
The Supreme Court hearing cases this year on same-sex marriage have thrust gay rights issues to the forefront again. One dominant voice continues to reflect the perspective of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community in news: the white male. “Mainstream (media) organizations will go to the one or two white organizations they know about,” said Jeff Graham, executive director of Georgia Equality, a statewide gay rights organization based in Atlanta.
February 7th, 2013 • Quill Archives, Diversity Toolbox
Diversity Toolbox
February is African-American History Month (also called Black History Month) and is designated to recognize and celebrate the accomplishments and contributions of African-Americans, people of African descent who were born in the United States. But the increase of African immigrants is also notable and is changing the definition of who is an African-American.
December 5th, 2012 • Quill Archives, Diversity Toolbox
Diversity Toolbox
Years ago, when I was a radio reporter in Fort Worth, Texas, I was invited to cover a Las Posadas event at a local Catholic church. It was a wonderful experience and a great way to share a slice of Latino culture with my listeners.
October 3rd, 2012 • Quill Archives, Diversity Toolbox
Diversity Toolbox
NOTE: As Quill went to press, and this column came out, the Hartford Courant announced it was dropping Google Translate and developed its own in-house, staffed Spanish-language site. Read more here. Over the summer, the Hartford Courant began offering news in Spanish to its readers.
August 7th, 2012 • Quill Archives, Diversity Toolbox
Diversity Toolbox
We who teach college-level journalism have observed for years that women dominate our classrooms. In fact, an annual survey shows that two-thirds of students in journalism programs are women, a number that has held steady since the 1980s. The latest statistics from the American Society of News Editors show approximately the reverse: Women remain 37 percent of newsroom employees.
June 21st, 2012 • Quill Archives, Diversity Toolbox
Diversity Toolbox
On August 22, 2011, former University of Idaho psychology professor Ernesto Bustamante shot and killed his former student and lover Katy Benoit at her rental house. After the shooting, Bustamante sequestered himself in a hotel room, a move that led to a stand-off with Moscow, Idaho, police and, ultimately, Bustamante’s suicide.
April 5th, 2012 • Quill Archives, Diversity Toolbox
Diversity Toolbox
The headline read “ESPN Fires Employee for Jeremy Lin Racist Headline.” Today, that former ESPN editor, Anthony Federico, is learning a hard lesson for writing a racially offensive headline “Chink in the Armor: Jeremy Lin’s 9 Turnovers Cost Knicks in Streak-stopping Loss to Hornets.”
February 6th, 2012 • Quill Archives, Diversity Toolbox
Diversity Toolbox
My son Ray is a transgender person. As a journalist and mother, I’ve realized that many media outlets don’t know how to cover this community. Sometimes reporters are afraid to ask questions or don’t even bother to get to know the transgender community that exists in their city.
December 2nd, 2011 • Quill Archives, Diversity Toolbox
Diversity Toolbox
Change can be a good thing. SPJ delegates proved it at the convention in New Orleans when they passed a resolution recommending that journalists stop using the phrase “illegal alien.” The “I-word” controversy gained wide national scrutiny in late 2010 and early 2011 after a Quill column by Leo Laurence caught the attention of Bill O’Reilly.
October 4th, 2011 • Quill Archives, Diversity Toolbox
Diversity Toolbox
One of the privileges of serving as SPJ’s Diversity Committee chairman came earlier this year in a big UPS box. It was full of DVDs, newspaper clippings and CDs with news stories that explore and expose issues of importance to immigrant or ethnic communities living in the U.S.
August 4th, 2011 • Quill Archives, Diversity Toolbox
Diversity Toolbox
Note: Special thanks to the Texas Department of Developmental Disabilities and Easter Seals for their insights on reporting about disabilities. Reporters interview all types of people. Unfortunately, when it comes to people with disabilities, reporters often make unconscious mistakes that can ruin an interview.
June 1st, 2011 • Quill Archives, Diversity Toolbox
Diversity Toolbox
It’s here: summer festival season. It can be a great time for a young journalist — and even the veterans now getting roped into weekend shifts with more frequency — to learn about local neighborhoods and cultural groups. But these seemingly easy events to cover carry risks for reporters, photographers and editors who don’t do their homework before Saturday comes around.
April 4th, 2011 • Quill Archives, Diversity Toolbox
Diversity Toolbox
Walter Lippman wrote in the early 1900s that people have pictures in their heads composed of stereotyped images, and views of reality are formed to a great extent by images channeled through the media. Aly Colon of the Poynter Institute wrote, “As journalists, we need to be as accurate and specific as we can be in describing people.
February 2nd, 2011 • Quill Archives, Diversity Toolbox
Diversity Toolbox
What constitutes and A1 story? Working at a historically black paper, the Amsterdam News, I have come to learn that the answer to that question can vary greatly depending on community and location. Even the way a story is approached can vary greatly among ethnic and mainstream media.
December 2nd, 2010 • Quill Archives, Diversity Toolbox
Diversity Toolbox
The following article is an opinion piece and does not reflect the views of SPJ, its membership or its Diversity Committee. The committee itself has taken no stand on the use of the phrase “illegal immigrant.” Frequent use of the phrases “illegal immigrant” and “illegal alien” by our mainstream media is being questioned in order to remain faithful to the principles of our U.S.
October 11th, 2010 • Quill Archives, Diversity Toolbox
Diversity Toolbox
Given the tough economy, it’s no surprise that the number of journalism and communications graduates finding full-time jobs has dropped to a record low. Still, it’s troubling to hear that it’s even worse for students of color. “Bachelor’s degree recipients who were members of racial or ethnic minorities had a particularly difficult time in the job market in 2009,” according to the 2009 Annual Survey of Journalism & Mass Communication Graduates.
August 2nd, 2010 • Quill Archives, Diversity Toolbox
Diversity Toolbox
As journalists, language is the stock and trade. Words have power; they should be used carefully. One thing many majority or Caucasian journalists may not realize is their language is different from people of color’s. Why? Perhaps because, as Carole L.
May 31st, 2010 • Quill Archives, Diversity Toolbox
Diversity Toolbox – May/June 2010
The outlook for diversity in media is not encouraging. The number of minority journalists in newspapers continues to shrink. For the second year in a row, the rate at which minority journalists lost their jobs or took buyouts was greater than that of the overall industry, according to a 2009 American Society of News Editors study.
March 31st, 2010 • Quill Archives, Diversity Toolbox
Diversity Toolbox
Social media is a great equalizer. It enables us to access people and information previously unknown and share information with people previously beyond our reach. This can make things easier as well as harder. While social media eases access for journalists, it also increases Internet “noise” and competition for the public’s already taxed attention span.
January 31st, 2010 • Quill Archives, Diversity Toolbox
Diversity Toolbox
Our journalism department recently conducted the re-writing of its mission statement. In most cases, I find this process more painful than a day at the dentist. The mission meeting usually involves a sports-jacket-clad consultant, reams of butcher-block paper and clock-watching faculty members.
