Campus newsrooms rethink their approach to race

As the editor in chief of the Daily Gamecock at the University of South Carolina a decade ago, Jackie Alexander still remembers a story she assigned a white student reporter. It was the spring of 2008 and in recognition of Barack Obama’s historic presidential candidacy, Ms. Alexander asked the reporter to cover race relations on campus. 

The story the reporter submitted depicted a harmonious, inclusive environment. Only three sources were quoted and none of them were black. For Alexander, who at times had faced racist aggression as a black student on a predominantly white campus, it was a powerful glimpse into her colleague’s racial blind spots – especially at a newspaper where only two

Turning the page on underrepresentationSupporting students of color'College newsrooms are uniquely dynamic'