Code of Ethics ft. my morals

Diversity.

A university’s favorite word and a word that raises ethical questions in a newsroom.

What efforts should a news organization make to reflect the diversity of its community?

A loaded question with an equally loaded answer.

Luckily, this is my favorite cup of tea and I like it piping.

It’s important for a newsroom to seek diverse content, sources, and reporters. This diversity should reflect that of the community the organization serves.

To provide content for people, news agencies must recognize the intersectionality of it’s community and reflect that in it’s employees and news coverage. This means uplifting marginalized voices, accounting for peoples systemic oppression, and providing opportunities to all.

Through hiring a diverse staff, the organization is able to ask a better range of questions that should ultimately lead to better news coverage for the community it serves.

Hate Speech

This is one I’ve thought about extensively.

This summer Trump supporters (MAGAts) spray painted anti-immigrant rhetoric alongside “Trump 2020” onto the Arcata Plaza sidewalks near Cafe Brio and in front of HeartBead. We took photos of the derogatory language towards immigrants and undocumented immigrants. In our news story, we decided to omit the actual words and ran an image of just the spray painted phrase “Trump 2020”.

Though we included in the report that there was anti-immigrant rhetoric, we omitted the actual words. Including them did nothing for the story, instead we focused on the positive community response. The owner of HeartBead got to work removing the hate speech in from of her store, and Cafe Brio employee agreed it wasn’t right.

Is it news that there was a racist incident in Humboldt? No.

We know several people in Humboldt are prejudice and Trump supporters. But if you fall into the group of people that was targeted in that anti-immigrant rhetoric, a gentle reminder that there are community members who will not stand for that hate is always appreciated.

People saw the hate sitting on the sidewalk there’s no doubt about it. I think the reason we published it was to document it and also remind those who saw it that there is retaliation to that hate.

I don’t think I’ll be a reporter after college, but I hope my local news source considers several factors when documenting hate speech.

First and foremost-

Does including the language/ image make a difference or is it included for shock factor?

Will this hurt or harm any one in my audience?

How can the publication fight hate speech?

I can only hope that publications consider the perspectives of those offended by hateful expression when making publication decisions.

This is where a diverse newsroom would also be beneficial.

Look at all these ethical practices just stringing together. We love to see it.