Diversity at Work

The (Portland) Oregonian recently published an article on the challenges low-income people face when trying to buy healthy food. The paper focused on Portland resident Lesli Calderon to help illustrate the story.

In the comments section of the piece, some people wanted to know Calderon's ethnicity and legal status, and wondered why The Oregonian didn't mention them. The paper's Sunday opinion editor, George Rede, asked me write about the issue.

I note in my column that deciding which diversity-related information to include in a story depends on the story at hand:

Journalists bear a responsibility to seek and publish the truth as they see it. That requires a dedication to fairness, thoroughness and transparency. Readers should seek to remain abreast of current issues. That requires approaching the news with care, holding journalists accountable and informing journalists about information the reader knows and the journalists don't. The honest and conscientious interaction between the two yields a more comprehensive, vital and lively form of journalism.