By Gabriel Ferris | Nov. 10, 2020
The Eagle will focus on recruiting first-year student staffers for the upcoming spring semester, Editor-in-Chief Sophie Austin announced during a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion meeting on Wednesday.
“We have a good size staff; however, we also need to diversify,” Austin said. “Focusing on younger staffers [will allow us] to ensure there is enough representation after senior staffers graduate.”
As previously reported, The Eagle will soon begin reaching out to specific students that may be interested in joining the newspaper. To do this, current Eagle staffers will be asked in the coming weeks to share the names of anyone that they think is interested in journalism.
Austin also said that The Eagle will leverage current first-year staffers to reach a more diverse applicant pool, which Administrative and Local News Editor Abbie Veitch recommended. The Eagle will continue to host a general interest meeting for spring semester applications, Austin said. Additionally, a wide variety of American University campus organizations and resources will be made aware that The Eagle is recruiting.
The seven DEI members present at the bimonthly meeting also heard Austin speak about The Eagle’s initiative to publish articles in Spanish. Talks are occurring with the National Association of Hispanic Journalists chapter at AU, according to Austin.
DEI members also reiterated the group’s recently announced commitment to researching the history of AU’s LGBTQ+ community and provided updates about other projects and events at the meeting.
On Thursday, professor John Watson hosted a conversation with Eagle staffers about communication law and ethics, and this week, staffers attended a Q&A session with School of Communication professors Amy Eisman and Sherri Williams to learn about reporting on marginalized communities, recruitment and retention.
Other workshops planned for the semester include one about financial reporting, one about reporting on AU’s administration and one about covering different cultures, which will be on Nov. 16, following a presentation about best practices for reporting breaking news.
New Eagle buddy pairs were made on Friday, and Austin said that a community-building game night is in the works.
