Commitment to Diversity
It's vital to represent all students and cultures at our school through our newspaper. I make it a priority to bring this up daily to my staff and make sure we are covering everyone and everything equally. My goal is to give everyone a voice and share their story.
My accountability & Education
As someone who lives in a multicultural home with my mom being Slavic and my dad Hispanic, there are a lot of things that we do differently. With this in mind, I've always been interested in learning more about different cultures and ways of life. I stay updated through current events happening around the world and read articles to educate myself on diverse cultures.
Whenever it comes to interviewing students, regardless of anything, I make sure to present myself in an approachable and understanding manner. Sometimes its hard to open up about your own experiences and life because other's may not understand, so constantly educating myself on different things helps me constantly learn about diverse ways of life and cultures.
pursuing growth
In order to improve diversity, I've reached out to many teachers regarding different topics to enhance my articles and gain more knowledge on the matter. I've found this to be very helpful and allows me to get deeper insight on each topic to accurately represent different groups at our school.
Encouraging staff to speak up
Everyone on our staff has a unique way of telling a story, and sometimes it's better to suggest a topic to someone else if they are more fit to cover it. Even though sometimes I want to cover some of these stories, I put the newspaper first, and I pitch the idea to someone who I know will do an amazing job and present the story in an accurate way. I say this because everyone on our staff has experienced different things and has different perspectives on various topics and issues, so I make sure to not miss the opportunity to pitch all kinds of stories because one of our staff members may connect with the topic.
Below are a few examples of stories staff members and I have covered regarding diverse topics. I worked alongside these staff members, from pitching the idea to suggesting who to interview. Overall they did a great job reporting, and showing the diverse cultures in each story. They made sure that the story was told, and everyones voice was shared on our paper the way it should be.
Our staff
This year our staff grew over double the size of the previous year. I find this being a positive outcome of our impact last year, and our engagement on social media. It's important to create a welcoming culture and environment in our newspaper because thats the key to having a thriving publication. We want to have students who are eager to publish, and our passionate about journalism.
We make sure all staff members know we are all a family from the first day they walk in. This is not just a regular class, but it's a team where we work together and learn from each other. This year, the newspaper has gained a lot of passionate journalist who want to publish and pursue Eagle Nation Online for the remainder of their high school careers. So, the editorial board and I make sure to give them the resources necessary to succeed once we graduate. I focus on making sure everyone learns the basic foundation of what ENO is because I believe that a strong foundation allows students to grow their writing, and cover various topics.
Covering everyone!
As the Editor-in-Chief, I make it a priority to cover all types of groups and organizations at our school. Oftentimes there are groups who are underrepresented that need a way to share their voice. I've found so many special and interesting stories through a variety of programs at Prosper High School, and it's important to keep up diverse coverage instead of covering the same programs every year.
For this story, I interviewed one of the exchange students from Germany who came to Prosper for a year. I enjoyed learning more about his experience and hearing about his culture, and how different it was living in Texas compared to Germany.
I got the opportunity to interview the News Director from the Trinity Broadcasting Network. I talked to him after he returned from Gaza. He had a lot of insight into what was happening there currently, and the experience of being there in person to cover the news.
Eric Manto is the voice of the stadium for Prosper ISD. Not only does he work behind the scenes for sporting events, but he also has a letterman jacket business that he runs across Texas.
I wrote this story at the start of my freshman year, I got to interview a cross-country member who had previously just moved from Ethiopia.
Eagle Brief elements
For all of our Eagle Briefs, I make sure that we always have a section where all sports are represented, as well as all the clubs that are having events are put on there. It's important to keep up equal coverage for all of the programs at Prosper High School, and making sure to cover them in Eagle Brief is another way we bring diversity into our newspaper. I included samples of different elements in our Eagle Brief that show diversity, from making sure all sports are equally represented in our schedule to making sure to recognize all programs or organizations that week.
