DEI Update from NHPR

We reached out to Jim Schachter, President & CEO, for an update on how the DEI work at NHPR has been progressing since joining Public Media for All. He offered the following.

What’s one DEI success you’ve had at your organization recently?
Building on an initiative to provide pandemic-related news to Spanish speakers in New Hampshire, we secured a Report for America position that will allow us to hire a bilingual reporter to engage with and cover the state’s growing Hispanic communities. We hope this will help us not just push reporting at these under-served residents but to produce journalism based on their concerns and interests. We’re working with an advisory board of Hispanic community leaders to develop our plans.

What’s one lesson you’ve learned about DEI work at your organization?
This work requires everyone’s engagement. Management has to give up control and invite not just the participation of frontline staff but their leadership. And management needs to invite the staff to hold it accountable.

What resources and support does you need to improve DEI at your organization?
We’ve been inspired by the DEI strategic plan shared by our colleagues at KUOW and the accountability report published by Louisville Public Media. As we develop similar documents, it would be helpful to know what other stations are doing to put a narrative to their DEI work.

Public Media for All will be working with the leaders of organizations that have joined us to model successes, share lessons learned, and get the support and resources they need to do this vital DEI work to ensure that public media serves everyone.