COMMITMENT TO DIVERSITY
Promoting diversity of thought, gender, ethnicity, coverage, and age were top priorities for the Highlander. Diversity is the cornerstone of ethical journalism, and it was imperative we accounted for our audiences’ wide range of experiences and identities.
HIGHLANDER’S DIVERSITY AUDIT - ANALYZING OUR PUBLICATION
As the former Editor-in-Chief, I wanted to value diversity in our publication on more than the surface level. Diversity of staff fosters diversity in ideas, approaches to stories, and sources. With that, I decided to conduct a diversity audit of Highlander’s staff and analyze my findings in an editorial.
THE PROCESS
The first step was collecting the data. After reviewing our staff’s race and gender identity demographics, I compared it to Carlmont’s overall demographics. I then organized the racial and ethnic makeup into a comparative infographic, which visualizes the breakdown of our publication.
THE RESULTS
The results of the audit were clear — the Highlander has an overwhelmingly white and female staff. Particularly within the Highlander editorial board, the members were almost all female. Although the racial breakdown of our staff resembled Carlmont’s total, we still had work to do. Two racial and ethnic groups remained underrepresented, and it was clear we needed to be more representative of the student body we serve.
As I analyzed these results, I noted areas where we can provide more diverse perspectives within our staff. For instance, intentional outreach to recruit media arts students could go a long way.
I published the diversity report in our first issue, and you can view a copy of the final version to the right.
Based on the diversity audit, I also noticed an overrepresentation of upperclassmen throughout Highlander’s articles. Since the staff of our newsmagazine is limited to only juniors and seniors, it can be easy to fall into the trap of interviewing sources they know in the same age group. To prevent this, I emphasized staff oversight to the editors to ensure that their writers’ sources represent the student body. I also created a “Diversity of Sourcing” presentation for the class, which you can explore below.
DIVERSITY OF COVERAGE
In the Highlander, we had six areas in which students could pitch under every issue. These categories include sports, campus, fun, opinion, feature, and our center Scotlight spread.
After analyzing previous years’ issues, I recognized our limited coverage of topics involving race, religion, or sexual orientation. With that in mind, our editorial board prioritized welcoming stories that navigate these stories of personal identity, culture, and human rights issues. For instance, issues 2 and 3 have included articles about the harms of rape culture, painting a picture of aromanticism, and controversial topics such as the racist origins of gun control. In Scot Scoop, we also encourage readers to submit guest articles, which provides them with a platform to share their unique voice without a journalistic experience requirement.