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Applying DEI principles in data journalism

Jayme Fraser (she/her)

Data Investigations

USA TODAY

jfraser@gannett.com

Samantha Sunne (she/her)

Independent Journalist

samanthasunne@gmail.com

Please grab a seat in one of the little discussion pods with three chairs.

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What we’ll talk about today

Who we are and why we’re here
PROCESS: Story and source development
PROCESS: Building data sets (us or others)
PROCESS: Analyzing data
PROCESS: Telling the story and presenting findings
What are our closing thoughts and takeaways?

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Introduce yourself

Name
Role in the newsroom
What do you hope to take away from this discussion?
For fun: Do you have a Nashville food recommendation to share?

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Discussion notes

Unconcious bias and the need for social economic parity when it comes to reporting. Seeking different sources beyond personal lens. Keep apprised of experiences beyond your own, including social media.
People that feel comfortable calling in are most often affluent, well educated white people. How do we engage the community more broadly?
Covering Asia town, how do I make sure the AAPI issues are as relevant to other cities?
You don’t need the expert-expert. Just someone more expert than you. Look at more junior scholars and co-authors. More likely to be more diverse. Pointedly ask for diverse sources from flacks.
Tragedy based writing - don’t victimize groups when writing about them. Stories “about” communities tend to focus on the bad things rather than being wholistic and complete pictures.
Should there be exceptions to normal journalism rules (like anonymity) to get more voices in print. Be more flexible with geography to include the perspective.
Importance of having diverse sources REGARDLESS of the topic. Don’t do it just for stories about the identity. Include diverse perspectives in all stories. Have the group as experts, not just the people acted upon.
As data journalists, look at a month’s worth of your articles and do an audit of your work’s diversity. How do you do a content audit at a local newspaper?
NPR’s diverse sources database. Use it!
Geographic diversity for general trends.
Include photos in content audit. Tie that audit to the reporter’s performance review.
Ask during the story pitch: How does it address DEI? Start early with thinking.
Missing demographic data: Why isn’t the government gathering that data.
Who do you a consider an expert? Are you only defining that as people from historically exclusionary institutions like government and academia?

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More notes

Don’t let lack of data stop you from collecting your own. Use staff pages, scrape, hand count yourself. Be transparent about process. Surveys. The story is that they aren’t giving you the data or are making decisions without this data.
Organizations doing surveys: Open News survey, which has a lot of self identifying data around demographics and role in journalism.
Unions also track this information. News leaders association is trying to.
Finding data that reflects DEI on university campuses where students/staff don’t want to speak out. Coffee hours with students to invite them into a welcoming area to talk about this. Addressing sources in a personal manner before asking them to be a source. Look at civil litigation or lawsuits. Reach out to online communities like reddit or facebook.
Having to go through a PIO to get records or data. Barrier. Email incessantly and include the people you want to talk to.
When diversifying our sources, make sure we’re not extracting from those communities. Not talking to them for one story then leaving. Ask whether the community needs that story at that time, or if its just retraumatizing.
Disproportionate burden on JOC to cover particular issues.
Sometimes changes may not be as quick as you want. Just talk to people. Do your homework about other communities. Do not limit yourself.
Don’t use a marginalized community as your stepping stone to career advancement. Don’t be lazy, extractive. Assign reporters to those communities that care about building trust.
I find the premise of the original question frustrating. The job of a reporter is to go learn things they don’t know. Why can you learn about scuba diving, but you can’t go learn about a neighborhood that’s culturally different than yours. If you’re editor, don’t let that be the culture your newsroom lives in. Take inventory of who you send to cover things and who backs out of covering particular stories again and again.

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More notes

Recognizing tension between reporters and communities and within newsrooms. Resolve them.
Data: No perfect data set to work with. But you can glean insight from merging two data sets together. Especially with disparities and demographics. Example: Put in every zip code in the US into Amazon to see if they do same-day deliveries. Took US Census and mapped it. Without fail, if you lived in a predomly B or H neighborhood, there wasn’t. But across the street in white neighborhood, they do.
For people not used to be quoted in the press, don’t expect concise, professional quotes. Instead, give them opportunity to tell full story on video. Give them more power/space.
Getting data/info: Mobile newsroom sets up shop in libraries around the city. Try to get guidance on what they care about.While you’re there, try to get data. Build your own data set. Who do they think is doing the most positive thing. Who really understands it.
Don’t be lazy. If you don’t know, have the phone number of the person who knows.
Education can go a long ways. If you don’t know something about a particular community, do your research!! Don’t rely on your POC friend to tell you.
Stick with it. Building trust takes time. It’s a two-way street.
We’re curious and questioning our sources. Why am I doing this a certain way?
We report FOR people and not ABOUT people.

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Resources (most are not data-specific)

DEI in journalism is the focus of the Maynard Institute. Check out their Fault Lines training: https://mije.org/diversity-training/fault-lines/
Heather Krause’s We All Count includes best practices for DEI in all kinds of data analysis: https://weallcount.com/
https://languageplease.org/ provides resources for inclusive editing and reporting
Workplace culture and integrity training from the Freedom Forum’s PowerShift Project: https://www.freedomforum.org/power-shift-project-for-workplace-integrity/
A webinar on Gannett’s Equity Checklist and a copy of the 10 tips: https://training.Usatodaynetwork.Com/2022/10/27/10-ways-to-achieve-equity-in-your-storytelling/

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