Faces of MSD
I first became Editor-in-Chief halfway through my junior year. The first issue of Eagle Eye News that I coordinated was the "Faces of MSD" edition that focused on highlighting diversity at our school. In this issue, we included several pages of features of students from diverse backgrounds who have special talents. I wrote this story about Damian Francis.
Commitment to Diversity
Eagle Eye News has always be adamant about telling the stories of a diverse variety of students at our school. As Editor-in-Chief, I take diversity very seriously. With each issue of the print edition that I plan and coordinate, I am committed to incorporate diversity into each feature.
Classroom Presentations
I created a survey to bring to study halls in order to gauge our school's diversity. I also consulted guidance to get exact numbers in order to accurately represent our student body. Although I am not a fan of this design, I chose this piece for this portfolio because I feel it captures the essence of diverse coverage. As part of the editorial board, I have consistently been on the lookout for new ways to incorporate diversity into every print edition In plan.
Previous Eagle Eye News Issue
In both the 2nd and 3rd quarter issues of Eagle Eye News, I emphasized the importance of including a diverse array of student perspectives. Depicted here are two examples of diverse inclusion in the latest issue of Eagle Eye News. With my guidance, the staff and editorial board wrote stories covering the multicultural performance, care advice for people of different hair types, different cultural foods that students enjoy and more.
Source Diversity
When we are creating a news story, myself, along with the advisor and the rest of the board stress the importance of including diverse sources. This means interviewing students from different grade levels, races and backgrounds. Although we have in some cases fallen short, I try my best to communicate to the staff the importance of interviewing people beyond just those who they are friends with in order to collect diverse opinions. We have access to a list of all study hall classes at school, which we use to help our staff collect diverse sources.
Staff Diversity
Eagle Eye News is welcoming to staff members from all walks of life. In order to promote diverse coverage, we ensure that we have a diverse staff. Our staff has a fairly diverse makeup, which is currently 19% Hispanic, 12% Black and 9% Asian, giving our staff greater multicultural diversity by percentage than our student body as a whole. Our staff is 22% seniors, 29% juniors, 16% sophomores and 33% freshmen, and our team comes from different religious backgrounds and holds different political beliefs. Although I believe this is a good start, I would like to see future staff incorporate more diversity in areas such as political affiliation and ethnicity. In order to combat just representing majority views, we made sure to recruit diverse student groups during our classroom visits and at curriculum night. It is sometimes difficult for us to recruit a very diverse staff, as our school lacks much racial diversity compared to other nearby schools. In my remaining days on staff, I would like to stress the importance of diversity in coverage through various lessons on newsgathering, which include mentions of both a diverse staff and diverse sources.