The why of source diversity and inclusive storytelling

Last year, I wrote a feature story for The Hechinger Report about the obstacles students of color face when trying to get into graduate school. I interviewed Black, Asian and Latino students, professors and education experts. When I wrote about the prevalence of skin cancer in Black and Latinos, I used real people and expert sources of color.

Gender and age discrimination play a key role in female Hispanic journalists staying at the bottom

Our recent Fundamedios study revealed that salary disparities are the main type of discrimination against Latino journalists, and the situation is worst regarding Latinas. The gender gap is a problem worldwide, but Latina, or Hispanic, female journalists are at the bottom of the ladder.  Additionally, they have less opportunities to grow and, opposed to men, … Continued

RJI now accepting applications for the 15th fellowship class of innovators

Applications due Dec. 18 The Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute is now accepting 2021-22 RJI Fellowship applications from individuals or organizations with an innovative journalism project idea that could also benefit the industry. Potential project ideas could include devising new strategies or models to solve a problem, building new tools, creating a prototype, or advancing … Continued

Readers can help you plan your next move

The beginning of the coronavirus pandemic brought with it a surge in engagement and traffic to the Spanish materials we publish on our site, Documented Semanal.  Within weeks, we had built an ecosystem where our readers, using our WhatsApp app, had guided us to create certain stories which would then draw in more subscribers who … Continued

Push notifications: Segmenting and connecting with your audience

Why use push notifications?  When it comes to connecting with your audience, push notifications may not be the first thing that comes to mind. Some may even say notifications are outdated or irreverent when compared to the current technology. However, the company One Signal, saw an increase of two billion push notifications sent out each … Continued

Building a culture of great visuals

Boyzell Hosey, Deputy Editor of Photography, faces new challenges at the Tampa Bay Times in planning the daily visual report.  He directs a significantly smaller photo staff than a decade ago in addition to the added burden of social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic. But the plan boils down to the same principle as always, … Continued

Your first web-scraping project will be easier than you think

Last week, a colleague emailed me with a data request. She was working on a story about the shifting sands of Republican congressional rhetoric on climate change and was wondering if GOP voting records had seen any corresponding shifts in recent years. She pointed out that one good measure of environmental voting comes from the … Continued

Discovering how readers perceive photos and video

The main questions bouncing around my educator’s noggin for the last couple of decades have been about how visuals resonate with audiences — what draws a person’s attention, helps them to parse information, to understand and remember? My goal with this RJI project is to create practical materials to help small newsrooms and non-profit organizations … Continued