Seeing ourselves as others see us — really see us — can be a difficult and sometimes alarming task. Nevertheless, perhaps no institution should be more prepared to take on the challenge than a newspaper and its newsroom staff.
After all, journalists put others in a public light. Sometimes we need to turn that light on ourselves.
Staff members of The Oregonian did just that last week during a series of “Time-Out for Diversity and Accuracy” sessions, an annual national newspaper project.
The events this year were staff-driven through a diversity steering committee made up mostly of reporters. George Rede, the newsroom’s recruitment and training director, led the group in creating a series of discussions around the theme “holding up the mirror.”
Discussion of diversity is nothing new in the newsroom. Rede said the committee sought a fresh approach to overcome possible “diversity fatigue.”
The result included sessions that were staff-only discussions of who we are — and are not. In other gatherings, the group turned to people outside the newspaper, including subjects of stories, to see how they viewed us.
Coincidentally, as part of a separate project, several reporters and editors also held a community discussion Tuesday evening in Gresham with Latino members of the Portland and East Multnomah County area. Similar meetings have been held with Latino residents in Washington County and with metro-area African Americans.
Rede, who has been at The Oregonian 17 years, said he wanted this year’s program to lead colleagues to insights about other people, to “help us to do work reflecting people across the entire range of activities and to do that consistently.”
By the end of the week, Rede was pleased that staff members had heard a variety of voices and views, both from their colleagues and from visitors.
Staffers had examined the demographics of the Portland area and Oregon, and they had compared them to those of the newsroom. They had talked of their experiences and formative influences, and of concerns that their colleagues were unaware of their perspective.
Some of the most rewarding comments came from people who had been the subjects of stories.
On Wednesday, staff members met with a family who are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; two lesbians who are parents to a son; and members of an Afghan American family. All of them had been featured in sensitive Page One stories in the last several months.
Staffers asked them how they had felt when urged to bare their lives for hundreds of thousands of readers and to let journalists into their homes to ask about religion and family matters.
Initially, all said, they had had qualms about the enterprise, about a possible “agenda” on the part of the newspaper. The Mormon family saw The Oregonian as liberal. One of the lesbian parents, on the other hand, described the newspaper as “incredibly conservative.”
In each case, however, the subjects said the journalists had taken time to explain their intentions, to develop trust. In the end, the subjects said, their stories had furthered understanding.
What they found intriguing was seeing themselves on Page One. Her life had not seemed special, one woman said. It is her routine, not news. “This is the way I live my life.”
Nevertheless, how she lives her life, her values, her goals, her family, make up one of the many stories that a newspaper can bring to its readers. The “special” lies in people of all kinds.
The trick for journalists is to be aware of the possibilities, to not overlook people because we might not immediately identify with them. If we better understand ourselves, we are in better shape to understand and connect with others.
