Diversity Within the Newsroom
Within my school, diversity looks a little different, as we’re a predominantly Asian community, with all the intricacies and complexities that that entails. Within the newsroom, I attempt to push my staffers’ mindsets by suggesting that they write articles about topics that they‘re unfamiliar with. This past year that’s meant increased LGBTQIA+ coverage, African American coverage, Special Olympics coverage, and Jewish coverage. Every voice within our school community is powerful and worthy of being heard, so looking for opportunities to cover minority communities is a task that I take very seriously.
Our campus cannot truly be represented, embodying our “One Team” motto if we don’t provide differing viewpoints. To ensure that this happens, I try to pair returning journalists with newbies, so that the returnees can show them the logistics of journalism and new staffers will gain the necessary experience to cover heavy topics successfully. I created a project designed to increasing the diversity of students' voices heard from: an investigative journalism piece at the beginning of the year, where the best piece is published in print. This year, a piece on period poverty won, and in the past a wide array of topics have been covered: from food insecurity to racial inclusivity within action movies. By making use of new journalist’s ideas and returnees’ journalistic instincts and skill, we manage to cover a lot of complex social issues.
Our campus cannot truly be represented, embodying our “One Team” motto if we don’t provide differing viewpoints. To ensure that this happens, I try to pair returning journalists with newbies, so that the returnees can show them the logistics of journalism and new staffers will gain the necessary experience to cover heavy topics successfully. I created a project designed to increasing the diversity of students' voices heard from: an investigative journalism piece at the beginning of the year, where the best piece is published in print. This year, a piece on period poverty won, and in the past a wide array of topics have been covered: from food insecurity to racial inclusivity within action movies. By making use of new journalist’s ideas and returnees’ journalistic instincts and skill, we manage to cover a lot of complex social issues.
Boarder Bulletin and Arts Coverage
We’ve also created “Boarder Bulletin” this year, in an effort to bridge the gap between our day students and our boarding ones. Day students have the opportunity to learn about other cultures and boarders can bond over shared experiences. This is one of the many efforts we’re making to be more inclusive of non-traditional students. I created a simple infographic to go towards Boarder Bulletin, along with a piece on the challenges dorm students face that day students don't, such as language barriers, homesickness, and a lack of shared cultural practices.
We also started to focus on our coverage of the arts and humanities, as after reviewing last year’s print edition, we realized that we tended to cover more STEM-articles than humanities ones. To fix this, I started the tradition of publishing 'Iolani Writes winners (our annual student writing contest) and I made it a point to send someone to cover every school play, to write a review and take pictures. These changes have gone over well in the school community, with many students complimenting our diverse coverage, saying that we've "accurately We started to solicit drawings from student artists, giving artistically-inclined students a platform to share their work.
One of the ways we’re constantly improving is by reviewing our past issues to make adjustments and increase diversity where we see we’ve fallen short. We many not be perfect, but we try our best to be a publication that accurately depicts our school community.
We also started to focus on our coverage of the arts and humanities, as after reviewing last year’s print edition, we realized that we tended to cover more STEM-articles than humanities ones. To fix this, I started the tradition of publishing 'Iolani Writes winners (our annual student writing contest) and I made it a point to send someone to cover every school play, to write a review and take pictures. These changes have gone over well in the school community, with many students complimenting our diverse coverage, saying that we've "accurately We started to solicit drawings from student artists, giving artistically-inclined students a platform to share their work.
One of the ways we’re constantly improving is by reviewing our past issues to make adjustments and increase diversity where we see we’ve fallen short. We many not be perfect, but we try our best to be a publication that accurately depicts our school community.