At the initial session of the college course I teach on multicultural reporting, I always tell my students that we’ll mine the full scope and depth of diversity: ethnicity, gender, social class, age and so forth.
The real challenge, I tell them, will be to avoid dwelling inordinately on ethnicity and race, especially black-white relations. But despite the richness of class discussions and the sometimes surprising depth of students’ writings, I invariably feel at semester’s end that we’ve been only mildly successful in avoiding this pitfall.
I feel pretty much the same way about print media and their efforts, however noteworthy, over the years to cover the complexity of diversity.
Granted, newspapers across the country have largely shed the earlier “minority affairs beat” labeling in favoring of the more PC “diversity beat” tag, but the reporting results have not always been as progressive. For myriad reasons, I suspect: not enough forethought is given to crafting the beat, the limited vision and interests of some reporters and editors, you name it.
Where am I headed with this? To the announcement that The Virginian-Pilot is taking another stab at a diversity beat. The paper had a reporter who explored aspects of diversity during 2001-04, but the beat was discontinued when the reporter took on another assignment.
Newsroom leaders, after much discussion and consideration regarding focus, have created what senior editor Jane Elizabeth terms a “redefined” diversity beat.
Elizabeth, who helped shape the new beat, said she has been at four newspapers during her almost 28 years in the business and has seen several versions of the beat. “In the old days, diversity reporting was literally a black-and-white thing,” she said. However, “a good diversity reporter today goes beyond race relations,” she added.
Which is what staff writer Gillian Gaynair, the newly named diversity beat reporter, hopes to do. At The Pilot since September, Gaynair previously reported for three other newspapers, including The Oregonian in Portland. She’s fluent in Spanish, and worked in Ecuador with the Peace Corps.
“I think too often diversity is solely defined in terms of race and ethnicity,” she said. “But I see it as that and much more. It encompasses class, sexual orientation, physical ability, culture, geography and the like.”
Gaynair said she plans to “explore issues along those lines that are relevant to our times, particularly to Hampton Roads and Virginia.”
Initially, however, Gaynair said her “primary focus” will be on immigration because ” this is a topic of discussion from the halls of Congress to dinner tables in Virginia Beach.”
“I hope,” she said, “to provide readers with context to the current debate over immigration reform – what it means politically, economically and socially for our area and the state – as well as take people into the lives of immigrants, old and new, who live here.”
Although Gaynair hasn’t officially taken over her new beat, readers have seen some of her diversity-related reporting: a story about efforts of immigrants to learn English, a Daily Break cover feature in June about Viet Bao, reportedly Hampton Roads’ first Vietnamese magazine; and one about the presence of two Spanish language interpreters at the Virginia Beach Department of Public Health.
The job description for the beat notes that the reporter will help cover various government agencies, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the FBI, state organizations that represent migrant workers, the governor’s office on Hispanic affairs, the state’s human rights agency and civic and grass-roots groups.
Gaynair will be on the paper’s reconstituted regional team, which, effective next month, will also include reporters covering health, children and elderly issues, religion and higher education.
Some newspapers shy away from having a diversity beat for fear that other reporters will pay less attention to the subject. Indeed, several years back, that was a fear of some Pilot newsroom leaders.
But that fear dissipated as the paper sought increasingly, with sometimes mixed results, to reflect the entire community in stories and photos.
“It doesn’t matter what the story is – education, fashion, health – all of our reporters and editors are tasked with including diverse groups and viewpoints in their coverage,” Elizabeth said. “That will continue to be their charge.
“So why create a diversity reporting position?” she asks. “It’s a very visible and practical way to track and report on demographic and social patterns and changes in our community, and a good point of contact for our readers.”
As a topic expert, Gaynair will also be a resource for reporters on other beats. Thus, Elizabeth thinks readers will “see even more diversity in stories throughout the newspaper – more thorough and thoughtful reporting of diverse populations and viewpoints.”
