Seizing the Day
At The Salt Lake Tribune, a Minority Journalism Day for
high school students proves to be a good model. By Dinah Eng
High school students meet with Utah Gov. and current Bush cabinet nominee Mike Leavitt for a question-and-answer session. |
Some people may not envision Utah as a state with a diverse population, but The Salt Lake Tribune in Salt Lake City is reaching out to a growing number of local minority journalism students to create its own pool of diverse talent for the future.
This spring, the paper held its fourth annual Minority Journalism Day, hosting six minority high school students from around the state for a day-long program designed to encourage the teen-agers to keep the Tribune in mind for internships and future jobs.
"There are many young people of Anglo backgrounds who, through connections of their parents or friends, have fairly easy access to meeting people in the newspaper business, but many young minority people don't," says Connie Coyne, reader advocate, community service director and the paper's Newspaper In Education director. "We want to reach out to these young people, provide contacts for them and encourage them to stay in touch with us."
Coyne says the program began four years ago in an effort to create stronger connections with minority communities that had not always been effectively covered in the newspaper. Early on, the program attracted only three or four students each year, so this year's jump to six participants was gratifying.
"We would have had nine, but three of them coincidentally were finalists for the Model United Nations contest, which held its finals on the same day as our event," says Coyne. "The number of participants is small, but this year's students came from four different counties within the state, which means we're getting better acceptance than in the past. We hope to get even more next year."
Coyne says the program is advertised through an e-mail campaign to all the high school journalism advisers in the state, who are asked to nominate students for the program. Any Utah high school student of color who has an interest in print journalism may apply.
In this year's program, which took place April 1, students could attend one of four morning workshops - depending on their interest - in news coverage, photography, editorial writing or feature writing.
"This year, we did a buddy system and paired students up with journalists, then invited more staffers to a two-hour luncheon so that they could meet more people," says Coyne. "The students had a chance to ask questions, share their frustrations about being high school journalists, and their thoughts about going on to college."
After lunch, the group went over to the state capitol building, where the students were given 45 minutes to interview Gov. Mike Leavitt before returning to the paper and working with an editor to write a story for the next day's paper.
"Before they went home, they went to an afternoon news meeting and saw the process of budgeting the stories and selecting what went into the next day's paper," says Coyne. "We had students ranging from freshmen to seniors, with Asians, Latinos and an American Indian in the group.
"A lot of people think Utah's all white, but we have minority families here, and we want to encourage the kids to look into newspapers as a career. Some participants from past programs have become stringers for us when they go to college."
Coyne says the paper has also established a minority mentorship program with the student newspaper staff of The Daily Chronicle at the University of Utah, and sponsors a statewide journalism workshop at the university that drew more than 700 students last November.
In addition, the paper is trying to reach out online to high school students, offering a section on its
Web site called Tips for Reporters (www.sltrib.com/nie/tips.asp) that includes online chats with Tribune reporters, copy editors and photographers.
"The reaction has been fantastic among the staff," says Coyne. "People are pleased to be mentors in the program with the university and to participate with the high school students. We want our paper to eventually reflect the population of the
Salt Lake Valley, and came to the conclusion that we need to grow our own. We want these students to let us know where they go to college, and when they want internships. We want them to know we're here for them."
Connie Coyne is a reader advocate, community service director and NIE director for The Salt Lake Tribune.
SUMMER/FALL 2003