Berkeley student newspaper creates ‘Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion’ blog

The student newspaper of the University of California-Berkeley announced its creation of a “diversity, equity, and inclusion blog.” Established in 1871, The Daily Californian will now feature The Div Com Desk Blog to report on its “weekly discussions about diversity and newsroom culture to the larger community.” 

“Whether covering our newsroom’s hiring process or commenting on identity politics,” said an announcement issued by Senior Staff member Mallika Seshadri, “the Div Com desk brings together all the Daily Cal has to offer.” 

The Div Com Blog continues The Daily Californian’s efforts to center its newsroom culture and reporting on the principles of “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” In 2017, the newspaper appointed a committee for “staff who belong to underrepresented minorities.” It aimed to “turn our workplace into an environment that does not marginalize the community it serves to represent.” 

The Daily Californian made the announcement after a microfilm strip describing allegations of racism that date back to 1972 was uncovered in the archives of the University of California-Berkeley’s Ethnic Studies Library. 

[RELATED: Harvard students push for curriculum ‘audit,’ mandatory ‘anti-racism’ courses]

The discovery, said Editor in Chief Ritchie Lee in 2017, caused the newsroom to “identify our weakness” of which “diversity, I feel, is our biggest.”

Other college newspapers have taken similar steps to centralize their publication’s focus on “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” 

In an exclusive interview with Campus Reform, Editor-in-Chief Colbi Edmonds of The Daily Free Press at Boston University said her newsroom “recently created the Diversity and Inclusion Chair,” whose job is to be a “watchdog and monitor our coverage and make sure that we are sharing voices the way they need to be shared.”

The Diversity and Inclusion Chair oversees training programs that make sure “we are teaching all of our reporters how to go about reporting properly, and how to make sure that we are including minority voices in the newsroom.” 

“We’re really excited to do that,” she said. 

When asked if there are ideas The Daily Free Press would censor to meet its diversity goals, Edmonds said, “We haven’t crossed that boundary yet, but we would never publish anything that’s offensive to anyone.” 

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