Quill - December 2008 - (Page 34) Diversity ELISSA SONNENBERG Elissa Sonnenberg is an assistant professor and assistant director of the journalism program at the University of Cincinnati. She attended UC as an undergrad, then received her master’s degree from Northwestern University. She spent the majority of her professional journalism career working for print and online magazines, and continues to freelance for local and national publications, including Cincinnati magazine and Parade. O Looking for new angles in campus news were more offended by a not-so-glowing review of a recent hip-hop show. For Dungjen, Conlin and their peers, the definition of diversity stretches far beyond black-and-white distinctions. As adviser to both the student SPJ chapter and the student Association of Black Journalist chapters, I’ve watched our most active and ambitious journalism students choose to pool their resources for joint programming that brings in sought-after speakers and addresses topics that concern all journalists and all students. In our large urban university, students eager for opportunities hold down multiple jobs, scramble for the best internships, juggle full-time class loads and work to build diverse portfolios in print and online. They are challenged like never before to work smarter and master an ever-growing repertoire of skills. I’ve been impressed by the power of their initiatives that support one another across cultural lines even as they draw strength from their individual communities. I think our program, the fourth largest in the College of Arts & Sciences with 240 majors, illustrates the complexities of campus journalism. It’s not just who does what, although I’m happy to see that minority and female leaders are the fastestgrowing among our ranks. It’s what they do, from writing to photography to online production. It’s what they choose to cover, from feature stories to environmental topics to campus policies to rallies. Yet as new challenges bombard them, I see them engage in the same conversations that have driven journalists to remain vibrant and relevant in the world’s most turbulent, and in many ways, most exciting times. What is news? Why does this story matter? How will this affect the future? True stories have always been diverse; they are complicated; they are the hardest and yet most critical stories we have to tell. Which brings me back to that clear November night, when News Record editors and photographers of various shades of experience and ethnicities wound their way down the crowded stands toward the field. I watched them maneuver past national media, and I saw them disappear into the ever-moving, ever-growing throng. Then, with Sen. Obama in mid-speech, I found my eyes drawn toward familiar silhouettes on the risers set up for media. Two female student photographers perched on the top level, angling their lenses alongside the pros. Their focus clear, they stretched forward, their cameras leading the way, hungry for the best shot. t n a recent Sunday night in November, fans filled Nippert Stadium on the University of Cincinnati campus. Across a cobblestone street, eight of the independent, student-run newspapers’ editors braced themselves for a long deadline night. Just two days earlier, the UC Bearcat football team had thrilled a Nippert crowd of 30,000-plus with a win over the University of South Florida. But on this night, no shoulder pads were required as 27,000 guests found seats at the open-air arena, settling in for a music-filled rally and welcoming Sen. Barack Obama to campus for the second time this year, this time just two days before the general election. In the basement-level student newspaper office, co-news editor Taylor Dungjen, press pass pinned to her sweater, paced as she wondered aloud how many news stories she could cram into the News Record’s Monday edition. She scanned through images of lines from earlier in the day, lines that snaked along sidewalks and down main thoroughfares, lines that converged just steps outside her office’s door. At a school with more than 36,000 students, where the percentage of enrolled women outnumbers enrolled men mostly in the part-time student bracket, four female journalists now call the shots at the News Record: the editor in chief, the two news editors and the photo editor. It’s a far cry from my undergraduate days on the Cincinnati campus in the mid-1980s, when at one point I was the only female editor on a staff of more than 20. Then, I considered it a victory to claim a full page for a story package about date rape. Today, student writers tackle issues such as university-led breast cancer research, autism and its effects on campus, and nontraditional student concerns. Fourth-year journalism major Kristy Conlin, the paper’s editor, fresh off defending an editorial policy decision to university officials, knows that presenting diverse viewpoints takes work. A university staffer had complained when a feature spotlighting an on-campus drag show had run next to a regularly scheduled sex column. The non-student reader found the content mix offensive. Conlin, who rotates three authors for the sex column to showcase diverse points of view, disagreed. “We feel like it’s a reflection of campus life,” Conlin said. Dungjen, who also serves as the university’s SPJ chapter president, added that the content the “adult” reader had found offensive generated minimal online comment. Student readers, it seemed, 34 Quill DECEMBER 2008
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