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Desiree H. Garcia
Alonso High School
Tampa, Florida
Unit title: Diversity in media coverage
Overview and Rationale
The purpose of this set of assignments
revolves around the theme of diversity and its role in comprehensive news reporting.
Students will identify any bias or inequity in community reporting that may
exist in mainstream media and to consider if this is an issue for the students'
own school newspaper.
Students will analyze the local newspapers and television stations and their
websites to determine the percentage of coverage given to people of color who
live in their viewing and reading area. They also will analyze the types of
coverage: crime and courts, sports, features, biographies, and the manner in
which people of color are depicted in stories on political and social issues,
such as immigration, homelessness and corporate crime. They will compare the
coverage given by mainstream media to those targeting various minority groups
in the community. They will look at an example of diversity reporting and the
writer of the piece. They will produce a newspaper budget and an article for
the newspaper that reflects the diversity of their school. Editors from local
minority papers will be invited to speak to students about this subject, specifically
addressing the essential questions listed below.
Goals for Understanding
Realize the need for diversity in news coverage of the community. In the Society
of Professional Journalists' Code of Ethics, the need to "tell the story
of diversity and magnitude of the human experience boldly," examine
one's own cultural values and avoid imposing those on others, avoid stereotyping,
and give a voice to the voiceless are some of the tenets in which the need
for diversity in reporting is covered. This value also is reflected in the
student newspaper's mission statement, which mirrors the school's stated
values.
Essential Questions
- Why
is it important to a healthy democracy to have diverse reporting?
- Why
is diversity in reporting a core value of professional journalists?
Critical Engagement Questions
- What
are some perspectives missing from our community's media?
- Why
is it difficult for the media to cover all aspects of its community?
- What
are some perspectives missing from our own student newspaper?
- If
we were more fully diverse, how would this improve our paper, our school
and community?
- What
actions could we take as a class to create a more diverse newspaper?
Overview and Timeline
- Day 1-3, Lesson 1: Explore the meaning of diversity
- Day 4-5, Lesson 2: Explore the importance of diversity
in news coverage
- Days 6-8, Lesson 3: Determine if local media is
providing diverse, unbiased coverage of the community. Some of this work
will be done for homework.
- Days 9-12, Lesson 4: Learn about the pitfalls of
reporting on minorities by reading an award-winning diversity story and
a bio and interview with the author on how she does her job.
- Day 13, Lesson 5: Determine if the student newspaper
is providing diverse, unbiased coverage of the school community.
- Assessment: Create a budget that reflects the diversity
of the school. Choose an article to write that will reflect diversity in
some form. Each student writes a story for the student newspaper that reflects
the diversity of the student body in some form, whether it includes different
perspectives through sources or is a story about a diversity issue.
Activities
Lesson 1 (3 50-minute classes)
Materials: journals, pens, index cards, tape, access to the Internet.
Day 1
Activity 1
Conduct a quick write on the
word "diversity." Students
write nonstop about anything that comes to their minds when they think
of this word for two minutes. Allow students about five to 10 minutes
to read aloud their writings.
Activity 2
Have people find their "groups," using the inner-outer
circle strategy. Create a space big enough in the class for everyone
to get in a big circle. At the end of the game, everyone will end up
in one of the five groups.
- Create five separate sets of index cards with labels --
not pertaining to race or ethnicity -- but about unusual hobbies
or activities that anyone might be involved in. For example, the
cards could be labeled: I am an organic vegetable gardener. I am
a mountain climber. I belong to a science fiction book club. I am
a volunteer with Meals on Wheels. I belong to a square dance club.
Make enough cards to match the number of students in the class.
- Select 10 people to be group leaders and hand them the
cards. There will be two group leaders per group. Instruct them not
to show or discuss their cards with anyone in the class except their
partners. The goal is for the other students to figure out which
group they belong in.
- Have everyone else form a circle facing outward.
- Place the group leaders strategically spaced outside the
circle, facing the people forming the circle.
- The teacher stands in the middle of the group and tapes
each person's card onto their back. Group leaders could help. (If
there are more than 10 people in the circle, place the same label
on some people standing next to each other and let them work as partners.
This is for game management when everyone starts moving; so no one
is left doing nothing.) Instruct students not to look at anyone else's
card. Only the group leaders may look at others' backs. (To save
circle time an alternative idea to taping labels would be to create
hanging tags that the teacher or the group leaders could easily put
around the circle students' necks with the labels hanging down their
backs.)
- The group leaders will not move. As each person in the circle
comes to them, the group leader looks at that person's label. Their
job will be to give each person or people they speak to a hint about
what group the person might belong to without being too obvious or
telling the other person what group they are leading. For example,
if the group leader is the gardener and the other student is the
square dancer, the leader might say: "You don't
belong in my group because your outfit would get too dirty." Or
they might say: "We don't like the same kind of music because
you listen to old country music." Or if the student does have "gardener" taped
onto his back, the gardening leader might say: "You belong in
my group because we both love to play in dirt." The inner circle
person gets one guess about the name of the group and then he must
move to his right to the next group.
- The teacher stays in the middle of the circle to monitor
and assist. To demonstrate how to give a hint, the teacher may want
to demonstrate with a student using two different groups that are
not part of the exercise. The idea of this team-building exercise
is to get everyone talking, working together, and bonding in group
Day 2 (or continue with Day 1 if there is time)
Activity 2 continued
- Have
students sit quietly in their groups and journal individually about
their experience trying to find their group and how others treated
them. Did they encounter bias, stereotyping, or accidental rude comments
about who they were? Did they feel like outcasts?
- Students brainstorm some story ideas together about their group
for the newspaper. Teacher circulates among the groups and encourages
them to look for stories that are not obvious or clichéd.
As they conclude, ask the class to consider if other students will
really want to read the stories they came up with. Just how interesting
were their ideas?
- Now, allow them time to research their topics online to learn
more about their hobbies and to find other story ideas they did not
think about. Ask them to pretend this is their passion. This is what
they and their family and friends do whenever they are not working
or in school. Tell them not to discuss their research or story ideas
with students outside their group. They probably wouldn't be interested
anyway.
Day 3
Activity 2 continued
- Create a big circle of desks. Everyone sits next to his
or her group members in the circle.
- Tell the students they will be practicing interviewing
each other. They will be assigned to write a story about the group
the interviewee belongs to. Randomly hand out cards with the students'
names on them. Whoever's card a person has, that is the person they
will interview. Tell students to make sure they don't have the card
of someone in their group.
- With the rest of the class silent and listening, a reporter
asks a question and takes notes. If he or she needs help, someone
from his or her own group can jump in if asked to do so. Go around
the room until everyone has asked a question of another student.
- Have
everyone journal about what they saw and felt during this process.
What types of questions were asked: Were they knowledgeable, sensitive,
probing, shallow, off the mark, or silly? How did they feel
about the questions that were asked of them?
- Class discussion. Bring out the need to get background
on a story before interviewing people. Why do writers inadvertently
insert bias? (ignorance and lack of experience with the subject,
lack of research, not interviewing enough and varied types of people,
not self-analyzing for bias.) Discuss how important it is not to
stereotype others or force our cultural values and bias on others.
Just because our family and friends love square dancing and think
reading science fiction is a waste of time, doesn't mean everyone
thinks like us.
Lesson 2 (2 50-minute class periods)
Materials needed: Class set of the Society of Professional Journalists' Code
of Ethics, student newspaper's mission statement, sticky note pads in five
different colors or five different colored pens, markers, a large sheet of
chart paper and flip chart sheets of paper.
Day 4
- Place students in different groups of four.
Give each group a sheet of flip chart paper and markers. Have them come
up with a budget for the next newspaper and prioritize the stories in order
of importance. In addition to considering what is really happening at school,
tell them to pretend some segments of the student population belongs to
the five groups they had formed in class in the last several days. Tell
them there is room for only 4 news stories, 3 feature stories and 3 sports
stories. There may be room for 5-7 briefs somewhere in the paper. Have
each group write their lists on large chart paper and post.
- Ask each group to explain their news judgment.
- Read the Code of Ethics aloud with students. Have them find two
words they don't know and write each one on a yellow sticky. After reading
the code aloud, give everyone time to look up their definitions and print
it on the stickies. Place the stickies on the chart paper, which is titled "Journalists'
Code of Ethics and Diversity" and has been hung on a wall in the classroom.
Designate a spot on the chart paper for definitions. Create a web format
on the chart paper with each of the five sections labeled and circled with
some lines coming out of them like spokes on a wheel. (The sections are:
Preamble, Seek Truth and Report it, Minimize Harm, Act Independently, Be
Accountable)
Day 5
- Have a quick discussion about why it would
be important to write stories about people of all races and ethnicities
in the community.
- Divide everyone into partners and assign each of the five sections
of the code to a set of partners. Each section gets a different colored
sticky note. Have like groups sitting near each other or in circles of
four so they have the option of working with more than one other person.
Since the Seek Truth and Report it Section is so large, perhaps double
up on that one.
- Have student find sections of the code they think pertain to the needs
of non-majority members of society. Each separate item students identify
should be paraphrased and put on a separate sticky. The sticky note then
is taped at the end of one of the lines coming out of the section header
on the chart paper that is hanging on the wall in the room.
- When the group work is complete, have a volunteer for each section
go to the chart paper and summarize for the class what his or her group
came up with.
- Leave room for class discussion.
Lesson 3 (3 50-minute class)
Materials: scissors, glue sticks, flip chart paper, Five sets of six or seven
local daily newspapers , the local newspaper covering the black community;
samples of the six free Spanish-language papers if available; Internet access
to major daily newspapers.
Days 6-7
Activity 1
- Read the school newspaper's mission
statement aloud. Have students individually identify the different groups
of students that make up the student body, not just by race and ethnicity
but also by interests and value systems. Discuss as a class the make up
of the student body and what makes their school special or different from
other high schools.
Activity 2
- Explain that we will be documenting the inclusion of
people of color in news coverage for our area by local television news
and publications. For homework, students are to watch the different news
stations, Monday through Thursday, and journal about any stories about
minorities and any stories that include people of color as sources. For
the journal assignment, they are to organize their notes into three categories: news
and business, features and sports. In addition, they are to make a list
of all the television news programs that target ethnic or racial groups
of people. On Friday, they will work in groups to combine their findings
into charts on large paper to post in the room for comparison. Explain
that with the changes in media due to technology, newspapers now compete
with the TV stations via their online papers. Also, competition has expanded
outside the region to other papers, as well as individual news hounds
who may post blogs and homemade videos or alert competitors.
- Explain to students they will now do the same thing with the local
daily newspaper. Put students in groups of five and give each group flip
chart paper. Give each group a different day's paper. Have students cut
out any news or feature stories about minorities or that use a minority
source. Have them write a list of sports headlines for stories with minorities.
Assign duties: two people cut news and business and features, another
student pastes the stories under appropriate labels of the chart paper,
another two gather the sports stories and writes those headlines on regular
notebook paper; and post that work on the chart paper when completed.
- Groups analyze the treatment and coverage of minorities and tabulate
this under three headings that are listed at the top right corner of
their chart paper: Positive, negative, neutral. For each story or source
quoted, put a mark under the appropriate column.
- Students present their findings to the class.
Day 8
Activity 1
- Ask students who among them plays
on a sports team at school or at a community club. Have the people who
raise their hands come to the front of the class. Tell them to put their
hands over their mouths and instruct them they may not speak until told
otherwise. Instruct the class to turn to a partner next to them and talk
about their plans for this weekend or the best movie they have seen recently.
They are to talk for at least three minutes. At the end of the exercise,
have the sports people sit down. Have a short class discussion about how
this exercise relates to the analysis of the media we are doing. Ask the
sports people how they felt being excluded and unable to speak.
Activity 2
- Divide people in different groups and give
each person a copy of the local daily newspaper. Give each group a chart
paper. Assign each group a different set of pages. Have them cut out
stories that include a minority source or that focus on a minority issue
and past those on their chart paper. Also, a group of students could
be assigned to do a compare and contrast of ads between two daily newspapers.
They could cut out any ads with art of minorities or directed to minorities.
- Groups analyze the treatment and coverage of minorities and tabulate
this under three headings that are listed at the top right corner of
their chart paper: Positive, negative, neutral. For each story or source
quoted, put a mark under the appropriate column.
- Post these on the walls with the charts created earlier for the
local newspaper. Put these questions on the overhead:
- What
are some perspectives missing from our community's media?
- Why
is it difficult for the media to cover all aspects of its community?
- Have groups discuss these questions and then journal individually
about both of them.
Lesson 4 (4 50-minute class periods)
Materials:
Day 9-10
Activity 1
Have students read pp. 155-157 about
Phuong Ly and create a timeline of her personal and professional life,
focusing on the highlights of her life that moved her to the point she
is at now in her career.
Activity 2
Read aloud and discuss her story "A Wrenching Choice," pp.
158-168 of 2006-07 edition of The Best Newspaper Writing (See References.).
Ask students to discuss in groups the following and journal their response
to the following questions:
- How doe Ly organize her story?
- How does she handle the background on the family's culture in the
story?
- How are the children and parents different from one another in the
story?
- Could this story be relevant to our school and our students.
Lesson 4 (4 50-minute class periods)
Materials: News budgets created earlier during Day 4. Copies of the latest
student newspaper.
Day 13
Activity 1
Students may begin working on this
on Day 12 alone after completing the previous assignment. Tell students
the purpose of this assignment is to determine if the student newspaper
is providing diverse, unbiased coverage of the school community. They analyze
the paper by creating two columns labeled "Weaknesses" and "Strengths." Under
each column they write observations, suggestions and/or headlines of stories.
Activity 2
Revise the budget done on Day 4. Delete the ideas of
the make-believe groups and create a budget that reflects the diversity
of the school.
Activity 3
Each student chooses an article from one of their story ideas
to write. The assignment may not be a sports story. They will be graded
on not only the usual criteria of good newspaper writing but also how well
they have reflected the diversity of the school in either the story
topic or the sources of information they include in the story.
References:
- The Poynter Institue for Media Studies "Best Newspaper Writing:
2006-2008 Edition." Edited by Aly Colon. ISBN-10: 0872892964.
- The Society of Professional Journalists' Code of Ethics
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