Star Tribune, Minneapolis

DIVERSITY INDEX 250,000-and-above CIRCULATION  [Chart]

Scott Gillespie
Managing Editor
Star Tribune, Minneapolis
 
Please describe your approach to increasing diversity in your newsroom. All staffers are expected to seek out and reflect diversity. It’s in their job descriptions. It comes up at job-review time.
 
We offer opportunity. The Star Tribune is in a market with sophisticated readership needs that go beyond traditional local news into areas such as big business, sports, arts and culture. Minority staff members here cover banking, manufacturing, health care, the Minnesota Twins, city hall, state politics, theater and TV. Our photo staff is more than 20 percent people of color. Our AME/business is a person of color.
 
In the last year, we’ve made a concerted effort to better connect with our community. An ambitious new training program, called Strib U, offered:
 
• An immigration mini series that focused on the number of people immigrating to Minnesota, the impact on schools and local governments and the agencies that have responsibility for the process. Handouts were adapted into a Reporters Guide to immigration issues.
 
• An educational program from the Hmong Culture Center in St. Paul. We have a link to its Web site on our intranet.
 
• A Time Out for Diversity event at the Neighborhood House in St. Paul, Minnesota’s oldest resettlement house for new arrivals. We plan future training with its staff.
 
• Events with the help of the Islamic Resource Group. The first session covered the basics of the religion; the second was a visit to a mosque.
 
We’ve had a robust internship program that has provided us with a rich pipeline of young diverse talent. In recent years, we have hired 11 of our summer interns, and nine of them were people of color. We pay our interns well so we can compete for top talent.
 
What is the toughest obstacle to success and how have you worked to overcome it? As have most newspapers, we’ve had to wrestle with tight budgets. We fight that by being as resourceful as we can about ways to keep relationships open when recruiting budgets are tight. We are applying resources to training, so that our people can become even better in these demanding times, including becoming more multimedia savvy. We think this will address retention issues.
 
What are the benefits/paybacks of greater diversity? It’s the smart thing to do. Diversity on the staff leads to more and better ideas about how to cover the news. It leads to better understanding of the community, the people and the issues we cover. A diverse staff leads to more diverse training ideas and resources; better training leads to better content. Staff members value training, so they experience more job satisfaction when it is available.
 
How does greater diversity in your newsroom affect content? The more our staff reflects the community we live in, the better we serve the needs of all readers. We get a richer array of story ideas, a better range of perspectives and opinions in news decisions and a deeper questioning of assumptions. When we have staff members who can speak Spanish or Hmong, more doors are open to us in the community. We earn greater trust from our readers.
 
Please cite one example of a story (with some details) that was impacted by diversity in your newsroom. Photographer Elizabeth Flores has long been interested in immigration issues. In talking to immigrants she heard a dramatic story about  men from Axochiapan, Mexico, coming to the Twin Cities to earn money to send back to their families in Mexico. She did some research, put together a proposal, and eventually worked with reporter Kevin Diaz to travel to Mexico and produce a three-part series: “The Money Pipeline: Little Minneapolis.” A flow of money from Minneapolis has brought a building boom to a town in Mexico. The cash is sent by immigrants, thousands of whom are illegal and working in Minnesota.
 
Liz’s ability to speak Spanish and get the undocumented workers to trust her allowed us to identify an important story. She and Kevin started with Twin Cities church, consulate and business leaders, then traveled to Axochiapan to meet with municipal officials, civic leaders and the families of immigrants who live in Minnesota. Most of their interviews were done in Spanish.
 
What advice do you have for editors seeking to improve diversity in their newsrooms? Every newsroom and community is different, but remember that the effort is worth it. You can’t do it all but find ways in which you can make progress and focus on those.

 

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