Program provides professional development and fosters coverage of historically black colleges and universities
*Per
When Jarrett Carter Sr. launched the HBCU Digest in 2010, it was to fill a gap, carefully and rigorously, in higher education journalism at historically black colleges and universities in the United States.
As a student at Morgan State University in the early 2000s, Carter wanted to be a sports writer. But a professor, Frank Dexter Brown, encouraged him to experiment with reporting in different industries.
Carter was the editor-in-chief of the student newspaper The MSU Spokesman and, after graduating in 2003, went to work for the university in public relations. In 2009, he knew firsthand that HBCUs (acronym for Historically Black Colleges and Universities) they were not covered in the same way as predominantly white institutions.
“I started to wonder why HBCUs don’t get more coverage institutionally,” said Carter. “The purpose of HBCU Digest was to tell the story of HBCU in a different way. I never imagined that I would fall in love with higher education and, especially, with the ways in which institutions can transform lives”.
After 11 years running HBCU Digest, Carter left to join Howard University as director of operations, strategy and communications in 2021. But his work at Digest caught the attention of Sara Hebel and Scott Smallwood, the co-founders of Open Campus Media, an agency non-profit investigative news outlet covering higher education.
This led Hebel and Smallwood to the idea of the HBCU Student Reporting Network, a paid scholarship for student journalists to cover the HBCUs they attend to a wider audience across the country. The program, with an inaugural class of 6 students, launched with Carter serving as editor and Wesley Wright as assistant editor. It is funded through grants from the Knight Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, Craig Newmark Philanthropies and the Scripps Howard Fund. Fellows will receive a living allowance of US$1,200 per month for the 1 semester scholarship.
The 1st class comprises: Auzzy Byrdsell from Morehouse College; Brittany Patterson of Southern University and A&M College; Jasper Smith of Howard University; Skylar Stephens of Xavier University of Louisiana; Alivia Welch of Jackson State University; and Tyuanna Williams of Claflin University.
The fellowship is modeled on the CalMatters College Journalism Network, launched in 2020 to increase news coverage from California public universities. HBCU Student Journalism Network Fellows will spend 10-15 hours a week during the semester working on a variety of stories with guidance from Carter and Wright. They are eager to cover “funding and enrollment trends, campus arts and sports cultures, and the roles of students and colleges in social justice”according to the Open Campus press release.
Carter said part of the reason the HBCUs have been disguised is diminished resources in local newsrooms in the same communities as the HBCUs. Story budgets are usually dictated by what responsible editors are most interested in. Reporters have limited bandwidth, and educational reporting has traditionally meant covering local school boards and the city’s largest college or university. (One bright spot: The Plug, which covers black tech companies, has a newsletter dedicated to covering HBCU technology and innovation.)
“Typically, coverage has been about struggles and financial issues at HBCUs,” said Carter – and less about “Faculty excellence, student workforce development, political mobilization, or even the impact of HBCUs on agriculture, high school, medicine, and law. [Mas] news operations are starting to connect the dots about what diversity means and how to get there in terms of workforce development, and HBCUs are a central part of that.”.
The Student Journalism Network comes at a particularly important time for HBCUs. After a global pandemic and the murder of George Floyd in June 2020, HBCUs have received millions of dollars in philanthropic donations and national attention. Author and philanthropist MacKenzie Scott donated more than half a billion dollars to nearly two dozen HBCUs from July through December 2020. Recipients have put the donations towards funding their endowments, hiring teachers, upgrading technology and facilities and more, according to The The Plug. In 2021, the Knight Foundation, the Ford Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation together committed $20 million to Howard University to open the Center for Journalism and Democracy, which is now led by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Nikole-Hannah Jones.
Enrollments at HBCUs have increased over the past 3 years (even as college enrollments across the country have declined) as students look for safe and inclusive environments to study. At the same time, corporations and large companies are pushing to diversify their workforce; some have started to invest in HBCUs to do this.
But none of that is enough to solve major institutional problems like historical underfunding and discrimination, Carter said. (“$50 million helps but does not solve a $250 million problem.”)
Wright, who works as a student media consultant at Florida Atlantic University, said that, as in other areas, when there are fewer or no reporters covering institutions, both local communities and the institution suffer. Student network fellows have the advantage of already knowing the campus communities better.
“People who work in HBCUs often feel like they’re skydiving after a tragedy or after some phenomenon, and then they leave”said Wright. “This brotherhood has a different tenor. We’re not sending someone from another part of the country to skydive and interview a football coach, and that person has no local context. We are working with students. There is no better way to be close to an institution than through someone who lives in a dorm.”
The fellowship will help students build their portfolios, network with professional journalists, and have their stories republished by Open Campus Media’s reporting partners, creating a stream of emerging black journalists when they graduate.
“It is literally a dream come true for me”Carter said. “I’ve always wanted to see young reporters get interested in higher education, specifically HBCUs. I didn’t want to do this job alone forever.”
* Hanaa’ Tameez is a writer for Nieman Lab. Previously, she worked at WhereBy.Us and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
Text translated by Flávia Requião. Read the original text at English.
THE Power360 partners with two divisions of Harvard’s Nieman Foundation: the Nieman Journalism Lab and Nieman Reports. The agreement consists of translating the Nieman Journalism Lab and Nieman Reports texts into Portuguese.
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