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OMBUDSMAN: Minority coverage a complex problem
Ombudsman | 10/2/07
Posted online at 9:48 PM EST on 10/1/07
/ Last updated at 6:23 AM EST on 10/1/07
Last year, I issued a challenge to the editors and writers at the Justice. The paper's coverage of issues affecting minority students at Brandeis was sparse, as was its coverage of events and lectures sponsored by organizations belonging to the Intercultural Center. This latter reality was brought to my attention less than a month after I started teaching at Brandeis, when a student considering whether she should minor in journalism angrily pointed out to me that the Justice had failed to cover the opening event for Hispanic Heritage Month in September of 2006.
This year, not only did the Justice cover that opening event, it also featured a photo from author Charley Ferrer's lecture prominently on its front page. Reporter Shana Lebowitz was then given an entire page in Features to discuss the content of Ferrer's lecture, along with students' reactions to it ("Let's talk about sex," Sept. 18, issue).
This is, I think, a very good start to what I hope will be a year of expansion for the Justice, in terms of its coverage of diversity issues. I know from discussions I have had with editor in chief Rachel Marder that she is very keen to improve her paper's coverage of issues affecting Brandeis' minority community, and the short, but important article on minority enrollment that was published one week after the piece on Hispanic Heritage Month ("Minority enrollment numbers grow slowly over the years," Sept. 25, issue) indicates to me that we may be witnessing the development of a positive journalistic trend.
Expanding the paper's diversity coverage is not an easy task, though. The Justice's news room-much like news rooms all over this country (and like Brandeis' journalism program, I should probably add)-is overwhelmingly white. In a piece he wrote for the Web site www.campusprogress.org, Justin Elliott, former executive editor of Brown University's Daily Herald, points out that the lack of diversity in America's news rooms can be even more detrimental to the mission of college newspapers than it is to that of their mainstream counterparts. "In campus journalism, where there are few press releases, word of mouth is everything," Elliott astutely observes. "When the campus paper is run by students from a certain demographic, coverage tends to mirror the concerns and perspectives of that demographic."
This year, not only did the Justice cover that opening event, it also featured a photo from author Charley Ferrer's lecture prominently on its front page. Reporter Shana Lebowitz was then given an entire page in Features to discuss the content of Ferrer's lecture, along with students' reactions to it ("Let's talk about sex," Sept. 18, issue).
This is, I think, a very good start to what I hope will be a year of expansion for the Justice, in terms of its coverage of diversity issues. I know from discussions I have had with editor in chief Rachel Marder that she is very keen to improve her paper's coverage of issues affecting Brandeis' minority community, and the short, but important article on minority enrollment that was published one week after the piece on Hispanic Heritage Month ("Minority enrollment numbers grow slowly over the years," Sept. 25, issue) indicates to me that we may be witnessing the development of a positive journalistic trend.
Expanding the paper's diversity coverage is not an easy task, though. The Justice's news room-much like news rooms all over this country (and like Brandeis' journalism program, I should probably add)-is overwhelmingly white. In a piece he wrote for the Web site www.campusprogress.org, Justin Elliott, former executive editor of Brown University's Daily Herald, points out that the lack of diversity in America's news rooms can be even more detrimental to the mission of college newspapers than it is to that of their mainstream counterparts. "In campus journalism, where there are few press releases, word of mouth is everything," Elliott astutely observes. "When the campus paper is run by students from a certain demographic, coverage tends to mirror the concerns and perspectives of that demographic."
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Ross Perot
posted 10/02/07 @ 1:26 PM EST
"adequate coverage of issues affecting Brandeis' minority community." What do you call the Diverse City section of the other paper you've mentioned? It's time for the Justice to step up their act, especially given they're given so much more money. (Continued…)
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