Spring National High School Journalism Convention • April 16-18  •  Minneapolis

DEI Certificate

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If diversity, equity and inclusion are a priority for you and your publications staff, this is for you!

Convention attendees can earn JEA’s DEI Certificate by attending a set number of designated breakout sessions geared toward diversity, equity and inclusion in student media. Take the lead and put these sessions on your schedule so you can come away with new strategies and insights. Sessions — and the certificate — are open to all attendees! 

HOW TO EARN THE CERTIFICATE: You must attend at least FOUR sessions within the certificate strand. After each session, you are required to fill out a short form to verify your attendance  — instructions to access the form will be provided by the instructor at the end of each session. To receive the certificate, JEA will need to receive four seperate form submissions from you.

PLEASE NOTE: The forms will close at the conclusion of the convention, so please don’t wait to fill them out, as we don’t have a way to verify attendance after the fact. If you don’t receive an emailed confirmation receipt after submitting, please feel free to submit the form again, just in case.

 

DEI Certificate sessions in Minneapolis

Women covering sports: Finding your position
Sports sections are often the most intimidating spaces in scholastic newsrooms, especially in a male-dominated field. This session will explore what it’s like to cover sports as a young woman in high school journalism: How to earn credibility and choose stories that matter. Through real reporting experiences, this presentation gives student journalists effective and practical tools for building confidence, writing with authority and using empathy as a reporting strength rather than a weakness. While centered on women’s experiences, the session is relevant for any student journalist navigating credibility, access and voice in traditionally gendered spaces.
Miley Pegg, West Chicago Community High School, Illinois
8 a.m. Friday, Room 101 H, Level 1
Tell the whole story: DEI practices for yearbook

This session examines how diversity, equity and inclusion improve accuracy in scholastic journalism. Students and advisers learn practical strategies for interviewing, story selection and visual coverage that reflect real school communities. Designed for middle and high school media staffs, the workshop emphasizes ethical reporting, representation and newsroom practices that help journalists tell fuller, more authentic stories.

La Sana Groome, Wekiva High School, Apopka, Florida

9 a.m. Friday, Room 200 AB, Level 2
Building Native News
Join this session to learn about The Native News Project, a new initiative from Minnesota Public Radio. Discover how they cover the latest news about local and national Native American communities by highlighting stories and issues important to Native American communities in Minnesota and beyond. Their coverage includes cultural events, policy updates, community stories and more to provide a platform for Native voices, perspectives and important news. Bring your questions about how you might highlight Indigenous communities in your school.
Leah Lemm and Melissa Olson, Minnesota Public Radio
10 a.m. Friday, Auditorium Room 3, Level 1
Covering a mental health beat with MinnPost's Andy Steiner
Join Andy Steiner, MinnPost reporter and Pulitzer Center StoryReach fellow, for a deep dive into covering the mental health and wellbeing beat for a nonprofit local news outlet. Steiner will describe how she developed her beat, how she approaches sensitive stories, how she has cultivated sources over time, and how her latest project on the impacts of national health funding cuts on addiction treatment localized a global issue. Students will walk away with tips for developing their own mental health story ideas and reporting on them.
Hannah Berk, Pulitzer Center, Chicago; Fareed Mostoufi, Pulitzer Center, Washington, D.C.; Andy Steiner, MinnPost, Saint Paul, Minnesota
11 a.m. Friday, Auditorium Room 3, Level 1
The importance of diversity and independent media
This session will discuss the need for diversity in media and how independent storytellers are becoming a key component in news dissemination.
Harry Colbert, Center for Broadcast Journalism, Saint Paul, Minnesota
Noon Friday, Auditorium Room 2, Level 1
Reporting on Indigenous issues

Learn four key elements of getting the story in Indian Country. With 575 federally recognized tribes, understanding the nuances of history, culture, protocol and developing sources will assist journalists in getting the story. A resource guide will set the stage for a discussion of reporting opportunities for American Indian and Alaska Native multimedia stories.

Shirley Sneve, IndiJ Public Media, Lincoln, Nebraska
1 p.m. Friday, Room 200 HIJ, Level 2
Reporting with a mental health lens: Tools and strategies

Do you want to amplify stories focused on mental wellbeing in your community? How can you embed a mental health lens into your reporting? Join the Pulitzer Center Education team as we evaluate journalism by Pulitzer Center grantees from several news outlets on the intersections of mental health with topics ranging from education to LGBTQ+ rights to healthcare and addiction treatment. How can the strategies employed by these journalists support our own reporting, and how can we incorporate an emphasis on mental wellbeing into diverse stories?

Hannah Berk, Pulitzer Center, Chicago; Fareed Mostoufi, Pulitzer Center, Washington, D.C.
2 p.m. Friday, Room 200 AB, Level 2
Revisiting the past to build trust for the future
Advising isn’t easy, and it grows more difficult the more complex issues, identities and ideas become. This session is meant to help advisers build resilience by examining past coverage of marginalized groups and communities to help their staff develop stronger storytelling for the future, while also navigating the diverse systems they each work within now.
Patrick Johnson, Marquette University, Milwaukee
8 a.m. Saturday, Room 200 AB, Level 2
Culturally informed storytelling
Great storytelling begins with curiosity. Powerful storytelling begins with care. In this interactive session, Kyndell Harkness will guide students through what it means to approach reporting with cultural awareness, humility and intention — especially when telling stories rooted in communities you are not a part of. Through conversation, real-world examples and practical tools, participants will explore how identity shapes perspective — both the journalist’s and the source’s. Together, we’ll examine how to move beyond surface-level coverage toward storytelling that reflects complexity, context and care.
Kyndell Harkness, Infinite Voices, Minneapolis
9 a.m. Saturday, Auditorium Room 2, Level 1
Inclusion is a radical idea: Supporting student media DEI efforts
This session will focus on how the post-George Floyd movement has resulted in the dismantling of DEI efforts of all types in schools and newsrooms. We will discuss where we are in the current media education landscape and how that’s impacting student media.
Tamara Buck, Southeast Missouri State University, Cape Girardeau, Missouri
10 a.m. Saturday, Room 200 AB, Level 2
Inclusive storytelling: A guide for young reporters
This session situates the critical role of inclusive journalistic storytelling at a time when social and political divides and uncertainty around inclusive practices are intensifying. We will discuss why inclusive journalism matters as a tool to strengthen local communities, and how young reporters can do it well in practice. Using examples from ThreeSixty Journalism, we will highlight approaches for engaging young voices, amplifying underrepresented perspectives, and producing stories that reflect community diversity with accuracy and respect. This session will also address the challenges student journalists can face in pursuing inclusive storytelling.
Pechulano Ngwe Ali, ThreeSixty Journalism, University of St. Thomas, Saint Paul, Minnesota
11 a.m. Saturday, Auditorium Room 2, Level 1