Diversity Practices in the Newsroom
A weekly tip sheet for reporters, editors and newsroom managers

UNITY offers a weekly short write-up on diversity practices in the newsroom. This page is a resource for newsroom managers and other newsroom journalists to share their tips, experiences and programs in increasing diversity on their staff and in their coverage.

We kicked off this project May 19, 2006. We encourage submissions for this weekly column. Please send your write-up via e-mail to Rahnesha White.

Here is this week's write-up:

Nov. 20, 2007

By Joe Grimm
Recruiting and Development Editor
Detroit Free Press

When Sunnie Redhouse went to her internship at Sports Illustrated this summer, she and the other interns were told that, although they would do important and fun work, any one of them would be lucky to get a clip.

She wanted that clip.

Sports Illustrated is large and old. It covers sports with a nationwide staff. Fresh angles are rare.

But, Redhouse said, "I was going to get the clip."

She tried to think of something that SI, in all its years and with all its people, might have missed.

And then, it hit her. A friend had played for the Choctaw tribe in Mississippi.

She made some calls. She did some checking. She pitched the idea. She went back to make more calls. Redhouse, who is Navajo, understood that she had to work through the chief about a traditional subject like stickball. (Choctaw stickball and Cherokee stickball, for example, are different.)

She got the story. And she got the clip.

Redhouse had an idea that was different enough to be noticed -- and she knew how to get the story.

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