LEADING INNOVATION
Missing Voices: Diversifying the News WRITTEN BY ASHTON MARRA | PHOTOGRAPHED BY DAVID SMITH
W VU MEDIA MAG AZIN E 201 9
Diversity is hard work.
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That’s how Dr. Meredith Clark, lead investigator for the annual Newsroom Diversity Survey from the American Society of News Editors, described her work to a group of some 60 people from across the country who gathered at West Virginia University in October. Each year, Clark’s survey measures the racial and ethnic makeup of America’s newsrooms and has consistently found that minority groups go underrepresented for any number of reasons — exclusive hiring and recruiting practices and a lack of support for working journalists of color among them. But the group that gathered at WVU’s Media Innovation Center set out to change that. Teams of professional journalists and journalism students worked together to find real-world solutions during the social hackathon titled “Missing Voices: Diversifying the News.” “A hackathon is a really useful, productive way to get people to problem solve,” Dana Coester, MIC Creative Director and associate professor in the Reed College of Media, said. “We’re creating a collaborative, immersive environment where these teams had to really sit with each other and have difficult conversations to get to a solution.” Each participant was assigned to one of six teams made up of students Nationwide Representation The Hackathon drew students and presenters from universities and organizations across the country, like Dawaune Hayes from North Omaha Information Support Everyone (NOISE).
