Commitment to Diversity
“Diversity in media is something that is intrinsic to a democratic society." Jeremy Corbyn
Dedication to diversity within publications is quite possibly the most important part to actually covering a community in a well-rounded and accurate way. If there is no diversity on a publication's staff, then there is little to no diversity in their ideas, experiences, and mindsets that help us inform what we need to cover in our publication.
When it came to what The Whirlwind covered, we want every corner of our school to feel represented by the content that we publish. In essence, we don’t want to just get publicity statements and write them into summaries of events. We wanted to accurately report events, big or small, so that the stories of the students that are involved in the event are published for our audience to expand their view of our community. West Albany deserves to understand the rest of their peers and recognize their accomplishments in a way that a few short sentence summaries can’t provide. Amplifying the voices of students was always incredibly important to our staff.
Personally, I plan to commit my own career as a journalist to lifting up voices that wouldn’t otherwise be heard. The media is not a tool for people in high positions to use as free publicity, it’s purpose is to shed light on the meaningful parts of people’s lives that the public wouldn’t know about if they weren’t published.
Diverse Content
Amplifying Minority Voices in Writing
To give a platform to people who have unique and diverse thoughts and ideas that differ from those in the mainstream is what makes journalism such a fulfilling endeavor. It’s too often that the echo-chamber effect of the internet takes place and people that think a certain way cumulate in a bubble where all ideas are similar or the same, which in turn gives a platform to news outlets who only report on a certain demographic of people.
Culture Roads: Letter From the Editors
The second issue that we produced in 2021 was focused on the topic of cultural and racial diversity in school curriculum. Of course, this concept has been a topic of debate for years, and The Whirlwind was far from being the first to write about it. So we got to work on finding a unique angle to approach the topic from, and we decided on hosting a student forum. Special report editor Gabi Emery and reporter Cali Stenger put on a forum in which they collected opinions and ideas of students in the school about concepts like Critical Race Theory. The issue became about their stories and experiences, and the way in which they think about cultural diversity in education. I wrote the letter from the editors for this issue along with my co-editor Ethan Biersdorff, and I wanted to make it clear that we wanted the issue to serve the public, and putting aside our own ideas and experiences in order to truly listen was our intention in delegating the work that was done in the issue.
Diversity in My Reporting
Many of the pieces that I’ve included in my portfolio reflect my determination to be a reporter that is committed to covering diverse subjects. I’ve worked over the three years that I’ve been on staff to write about topics that are of political significance in a way that understands all sides of the story and reflects the range of beliefs of the public.
In my article, “One in Six,” for example, I explore the reason that so many young people have come out as LGBTQ+. I worked on this article for a long time, looking to create a piece that explains the topic from the perspective of those that are out as LGBTQ+.
I also focus on student voices in my series about the school board’s decision to change West Abany’s schedule last spring. In these articles, one of the main concerns of people was that neurodivergent students lacking the consistency of a pre-covid schedule would disrupt their learning. Rather than just reporting that this was a concern, I actively reached out to neurodivergent students with ADHD, autism, and ADD in order to report on why they were opposed to the schedule change from a first-hand source. I interviewed with a student who had very significant concerns about the future of their education as an autistic person. The schedule change, as they discussed with me, would mess with the consistency and routine that they needed to be comfortable and stable. It’s important to me that I take the time to speak to members of allegedly concerned groups of people rather than just reporting that they are concerned after hearing it from other sources.
Diversity in My Illustration
As an illustrator, it is important to me that my artwork, much like my journalistic work, reflects the entire population and not just the small pocket of it that I personally am exposed to as a high school student in Albany, Oregon. It's easy as an artist to simply draw people that look like you. As a white woman, it's a constant goal of mine to explore all types of people in my work. I am still working towards cultivating a portfolio of works that is truly a reflection of the diversity that exists in the world, but in the past few years I have been considering my own biases when creating my work and actively steering away from them to create pieces that are diverse.
