Alt-D Quick Answer O’ the Day: Diversify your content. If your staffing is too white, don’t sweat it. Just make sure that your editorial team is reaching out and covering diverse communities—and not just the bad stuff or stories about their communities. The easiest way to diversify fast is in your “soft” coverage. Once people of color start noticing your deliberate efforts to diversify your coverage (which really means: “cover your entire community”), you will get more applicants of color. How to retain them? That’s a different riddle. Keep reading!
Content, Do It Now, Ladd's Advice, Recruitment
content, Hiring
Here’s a great idea the rest of us should borrow for our papers: New America Media is featuring a story by Hispaninc Business that explores whether President Obama stiumulus funds are reaching minority-owned businesses in California:
Meanwhile, during a press conference on Thursday, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke — the first Chinese-American to hold that post — acknowledged that the federal government is a “huge bureaucracy.”
As a result, he said, minority-owned firms often don’t know how to access federal resources set aside for them.
“I know what a struggle it is,” he said during the teleconference. “I had to work in my dad’s grocery store for many, many years. … My dad was a small-business owner, and was constantly struggling.”
He said minority-business owners interested in applying for contracts from the Economic Recovery Act should visit the Web site of the Commerce Department’s “Minority Business Development Agency,” as well as .
Content, Do It Now, Story Angles
Business, Latinos, New America Media, Stimulus
OK, you want more diversity in your paper, your readership and your newsroom, but it seems like an uphill, long-term battle. What can you do right now? My “Do It Now” posts will be immediate “fixes” that you can start doing right this very second. Today’s tip: Diversify your images.
This is one of the easiest ways to help at least the perception of your diversity. Often, the true diversity of your content is not apparent at first glance due to your images. First, take a quick inventory (perhaps while you’re flipping through all the issues deciding on what goes up for awards for the year). Take a stack of papers and look at the images with a fresh eye. How many issues have non-white faces? Better yet, notice how many don’t. What sections seem to always have images of one particular race? Does every section of your paper look diverse (not just sports and music)? Do your ads show a diversity of people?
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Do It Now, Ladd's Advice
Advertising, content, Design, Images, Music, Sports
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