Marco Santana wondered if he had a subconscious reason for picking minorities as his sources during his summer internship with The Daily Herald.

Santana, a senior journalism major and president of Eastern’s chapter of the American Copy Editing Society, said he was inspired to initiate the panel “Invisible People: Does Race Matter in News Coverage?” after his internship left him with unanswered questions.

After interviewing a black man and his two children for a story for The Daily Herald, Santana wondered if he used a man as a source because of his race.

“Did I speak to him because he’s a black man? Did I talk to him for diversity? And is that going the other way?” Santana, a former Editor-in-Chief of the Daily Eastern News asked.

Journalists on the panel discussed the issue of race and diversity in journalism on Monday night.

The panelists defined minorities as people not in the majority of their communities. Hispanics, blacks, Asians and other ethnic minorities, as well as women are all minorities depending on what news story a reporter covers.

Panelist Larissa Chinwah, a staff writer for The Daily Herald, said minority coverage is more difficult to aspire to for newspapers whose community members are predominantly white.

“You can go out and try to look for an Asian, there really aren’t any,” Chinwah said of the potential sources in her coverage area.

She said when a town’s population comprises mostly white males, reporters must make the extra effort to find the minority population.

Panelist Gerri Berendzen, a copy desk chief at the Quincy Herald-Whig and member of the ACES executive committee, said some newsrooms are pushing to make their staff more diverse.

Because reporters tend to think first about the people they are most like, a diverse newsroom could lead to broader minority coverage in stories, Berendzen said.

She said she noticed her own tendencies to favor more news stories regarding women’s issues.

“As a woman, I think, ‘Shouldn’t we be talking to a woman, too?'” Berendzen said.

But with few minority applicants for small-town newsroom positions, Berendzen said fulfilling diversity needs in the newspaper world poses a challenge.

Panelist Jameel Naqvi, a staff writer for The Daily Herald said coverage of minority issues is essential because they do not exclusively affect the minority population.

When Naqvi covered a recent school board meeting, a Polish-American student requested that the school district create a holiday for Kashmir Pulaski Day a day celebrated by citizens of Polish descent.

While the board would not necessarily comply with the student’s request, Naqvi said news coverage of the issue was needed.

“I think the point is, let’s talk about these minority issues,” he said. “A lot of these have an impact on the community at large.”

Doug Lawhead, an Eastern journalism professor, asked the panel how newspapers should avoid using the same source repeatedly for background knowledge regarding minority issues.

Lawhead said he has personally witnessed a news organization use the same black reporter for every story it covered relating to black culture. The panelist discouraged this sort of activity.

“I just kind of always wondered about the problem of people interjecting their own biases,” Lawhead said.

The panel was sponsored in conjunction with the Associated Press’ traveling “Breaking News” exhibit featured in Booth Library through the month of February.

Factbox:

Upcoming Breaking News Events

Today: 7 p.m. West Reading Room 3000, Booth Library

Chris Sundheim and Martha Irvine from the Associated Press and Georges Garties, the Illinois AP Bureau chief will discuss how the AP covers world events during a panel entitled, “Always on Deadline: How the Associated Press Covers the World.”

Feb. 19: 6 p.m. 4440 Booth Library Conference Room

Journalism professors Brian Poulter, Peter Volez and Doug Lawhead will discuss the ethics of photojournalism during a panel entitled, “True Stories Behind Great Images.”

Angela Pham can be reached at 581-7942 or at ampham@eiu.edu.

Gerri Berendzen, copy desk chief at the Quincy Herald-Whig, discusses why there are few members of minorities working in the journalism field Monday on the fourth floor of Booth Library. (John Bailey/The Daily Eastern News)

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