Dear readers,

The Daily Orange must do better.

Our newsroom staff is not representative of the Syracuse University or greater Syracuse community we cover. For 117 years, The D.O. has operated as a predominantly white institution focused on a white audience.

The D.O. strives to be an essential news source. But if our reporters don’t reflect all communities, and if our readers don’t find themselves represented in our content, we must ask ourselves: To whom are we essential?

As the nation’s reckoning on the legacy of racism has touched nearly every news organization, we have also come to terms with the many ways The D.O. has failed marginalized communities in our history, particularly people of color.

This year, as many before, The D.O.’s editor-in-chief and managing editor are white.

In discussions with D.O. alumni this summer, we could only identify two editors-in-chief of color since the 1970s, one who is Black and one who is Latina. The D.O. has not had a Black section editor on its masthead since fall 2017.

This is unacceptable. For too long, The D.O. has blamed the paper’s lack of diversity on the whiteness of SU or that of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications rather than facing the hard truth: We have not tried. We have been dismissive. We have been lazy.

We recognize that diversifying our staff won’t be simple, and our efforts might fail. But we must try anyway because a D.O. that does not reflect our community will always be inadequate and out of touch.

To start, The D.O. Board of Directors decided this summer to form a diversity committee, which we will lead. The committee will be charged with discussing how we can improve our inclusion and representation of diverse and marginalized voices.

However, this responsibility falls on everyone’s shoulders. We have decided against the creation of diversity officer positions within the paper because we believe every staffer, from editor-in-chief and managing editor down, should work toward these goals.

We’re in the process of conducting an audit of our staff’s diversity, which we will compile into a published report modeled after that of The Daily Bruin. The audit will look at our newsroom’s diversity across several demographics, including race, ethnicity, gender, ability and socioeconomic status. The report will help The D.O. further reflect on our diversity and outline areas for continued improvement.

Diversifying our staff begins with outreach. The journalism industry is inaccessible to people of marginalized identities, and The D.O. has not acknowledged that we, too, have excluded and deterred students from seeking positions in our newsroom.

We have not proactively sought to hire reporters, designers and photographers of color, and our newsroom has not always fostered a welcoming environment to those who come to us.

Once on campus, The D.O. intends to actively recruit interested students from campus organizations that serve students of marginalized backgrounds. We’re also strengthening our policies concerning workplace harassment to ensure all students feel safe and at home in our newsroom.

We’ll also be tracking the diversity of our coverage this fall as part of a content diversity audit following that of the Minnesota Daily. We’ll be asking all staff members to think critically about the perspectives they seek, the voices they amplify and the communities they neglect to cover. Our board’s diversity committee will compile and publish the report semesterly.

We’d like your feedback, too. The D.O. exists to serve our readers, and we deeply value your insight. You can expect reader surveys from us this year asking where we’ve failed to report on issues affecting your community with fairness and dedication.

By dismissing the necessity of newsroom diversity, The D.O. has done you, our reader, a disservice. This academic year, we’re working to change that.

Thank you for reading,

 

Casey Darnell, editor-in-chief 2020-21

Emma Folts, managing editor 2020-21

Published on August 16, 2020 at 6:40 pm

Contact Emma: esfolts@syr.edu