Leading by example

Commentary

By Susan Ihne
Executive Editor
St. Cloud (Minn.) Times

09.30.04

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Susan Ihne

St. Cloud Times reporters and editors speak, understand or can read at least 10 languages other than English: Spanish, Russian, French, German, Lithuanian, Thai, Mandarin, Cantonese, Swedish and Bengali.

This sounds impressive until you learn that there are more than 43 languages spoken in our local school district.

That shows a lot of diversity within a relatively small number of minorities in our population — 4.7% or about 7,800 people in the St. Cloud area. About half of those are immigrants, with most coming to the area in the '90s, according to 2000 Census data.

So how do we cover this part of our population when the numbers are so small and so diverse?

They often don't participate in events and meetings traditionally covered by a newspaper. For instance, when President George W. Bush came to St. Cloud, 13,500 area people packed into a ball field to see him. Fewer than 30 were minorities — and as we wrote and edited stories, we realized each was interviewed by at least two St. Cloud Times reporters.

Athletic teams at area high schools and three area colleges rarely have minority players. All of the fans are usually white, except for the Summer baseball team. Of the 2,000 fans on a typical night, three or four might be minorities — and they don't like being the token quote for each game.

The local NAACP group has more white than black members, and often had had a white president. A local college professor determined that 67 non-Christian religions are practiced in the St. Cloud area, but none has a building or structure. Their gathering places are homes or rented spaces that aren't listed in the Yellow Pages.

The challenge is great, and we don't begin to do an adequate job of meeting their news needs. But here are a few of the things we've done to connect:

Hire a diverse staff, train them and help them achieve their goals: Five of our 40 staffers are minorities. They come to St. Cloud because it's a great place to learn and practice journalism. The newsroom is inclusive and welcoming. We recruit from across the country and, in three cases, around the world. We follow potential job candidates through school and first jobs. We work with the Freedom Forum's Chips Quinn Scholars Program for interns. We're willing to work with immigrants on work visas and green cards. We meet with all of our staffers annually to discuss one-year and five-year goals. We help place them with other newspapers when they're ready.

Give staffers opportunities to take on challenges: One of our minority reporters is going to Afghanistan for three weeks to report on troops from our area. We worked with the Freedom Forum's Diversity Institute to turn a lawyer into a journalist who enterprises area cities coverage with flair and precision. Our minority assistant news editor is in charge of the local stylebook. A minority copy editor spent his morning as a reporter covering the Bush visit, then came in during the evening to do his pages.

Map of the world: We've had a map of the world with numbers plotted on countries to show from where our almost 1,000 international students are and from where pockets of recent immigrants have come. It hangs in our conference room where we meet to make news decisions for 1A and the nation/world page. We try to make our international news personally relevant to our diverse population and their new friends in St. Cloud. For instance, we found that 40 percent of the local international students are from the small country of Nepal. Whenever we run news out of Nepal, I always get a call from the man who publishes a local newsletter in that country's language to see if he can use the material.

Mini-beats: Reporters in the newsroom have diverse mini-beats in addition to their regular beats. Our goal is to form relationships that make it easier to cover news among the groups when it occurs. Often these relationships result in sources for other stories. A casual conversation about the hurricane disasters in Florida turned up someone locally who is going to Florida to do construction work — and that fits into another story someone is doing. Our city government reporter covers the Somali community, which is growing substantially. A features reporter covers the aging population. The business reporter covers the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe.

Brown-bag lunches and other training: We regularly have brown-bag lunches with leaders of various local diverse groups. We enroll staffers in cultural classes at the United Way and technical college. Minority staffers were included in 12-week new manager and future manager training. Our interns meet weekly for dinner with a different editor to discuss journalism topics such as ethics, good photo assignments or nut graphs. We participate in APME's annual Time Out for Diversity in some very creative ways. For instance, last year each of the newsroom's eight teams brainstormed a list of ways to locate and develop minority sources on a variety of topics. Staffers then received copies of each list to use.

Outreach: We sponsor a Students of Color essay and art scholarship contest annually with the NAACP for minority high school seniors. Our reporters/editors conduct focus groups in which diversity is required. We work with six area high schools that don't have journalism programs to produce a once-a-semester full-page report on their high schools; we encourage teachers to include diversity in the group. Last year, we coordinated a matching service for local international students and area families for Thanksgiving dinner. More than 20 families hosted international students.

Coverage: We initiate diversity coverage beyond coverage of festivals and special holidays. For instance, each January, we run stories and charts to show how diverse the work forces are in five area cities, three counties, four school districts and the colleges. We did the story about how many languages are spoken in area school districts. We did a guide on how to interact with people of different cultures and countries. We have covered the influx of Somalis into our town and how hard it is for anyone to estimate the growing numbers, and thus needs for social services. We have four monthly minority column writers for our editorial page.

Cameras for reporters: Every reporter has a Nikon Coolpix, two sets of batteries and a recharger. The goal is to not only talk with diverse people for stories but take their photo so readers can recognize the diversity.

Leadership: You have to lead by example. You have to set the standards and expectations, then measure them and hold people accountable. You have to ask the question in the meeting about whether a story is mainstreamed before others will start asking or making the effort. You have to stick by your policy of having at least one minority candidate for each job opening. You have to participate in the community when the local Nepal group asks you to be their honored New Year's guest. You have to interact, praise and reach out to new hires and interns so others will, too.

The bottom line is that diversity and the goal of capturing all of the voices in your community is a personal journey. Various people take the journey at various times in their careers. Management can hire, train, set expectations and lead by example, but it comes down to individuals deciding it's important because it enriches their lives and makes them better at their jobs.

Susan Ihne is a 2004 winner of the Robert G. McGruder Diversity Leadership Award given by the Freedom Forum, the Associated Press Managing Editors and the American Society of Newspaper Editors.

Related

Diversity leadership award winners named
Editors at The Courier-Journal and St. Cloud Times to be honored at APME convention.  09.29.04