The journalism major attended the 2018 National Association of Hispanic Journalists Conference in Miami, working in tandem with professional journalists and fellow Latinx students covering the four-day convention.
For Diego Pineda, the benefits of the NAHJ/Knight Foundation student project can’t solely be measured in word counts, multimedia clips and portfolio materials.
“ln just a few days, I feel like I grew so much personally and professionally,” Pineda said. “I got an intensive newsroom experience that challenged me and helped me grow in my skills.”
Not that Pineda doesn’t already have serious journalism chops. The senior was named the national winner in the 2017 Society of Professional Journalists Mark of Excellence Awards competition. He will be recognized with other national winners at the Excellence in Journalism Conference in late September in Baltimore.
As part of the NAHJ student project, Pineda – the first-ever Elon student selected for the program – wrote articles highlighting NAHJ’s finances, as well as stereotypes and clichés the mainstream media misuse and overuse when reporting on Native American communities. The Native American Journalists Association partnered with NAHJ to host this summer’s convention.
In the weeks leading up to the conference, Pineda also compiled a comprehensive look at newsroom diversity, complete with several infographic elements. It’s a piece the young reporter takes pride in.
This wasn’t the first time Pineda has delved into the topic of newsroom diversity – or lack thereof. He wrote about the subject and its importance through an essay and an op-ed in Associate Professor Anthony Hatcher’s Journalism in a Free Society class. “I think his class was what helped me learn about its value and importance,” he said. “Because of what I wrote in his class, I was inspired to write this story. Instead of just using research, I used personal narratives from journalists to make the story have more of an impact.”
The mentors and editors in Miami made an effort to push the students beyond their comfort zones, according to Pineda. Strong, insightful content was the primary objective, and students were expected to meet a professional standard. This sometimes meant adjusting on the fly, especially when the direction of a news story changed at a moment’s notice.
“I didn’t just get a few edits from the mentors. They would sit with me and go over the story as they edited it so I could learn from their feedback,” he said. “This was definitely a more real-world experience (compared to his previous student media experience). My limits were tested, but I had to push through and learn.”
“The highlight was just being surrounded by my people,” he said. “These were people who look like me, are interested in journalism, and have the same goals as I have. It was an experience like no other to connect with someone you met that day and feel like you have known them for your entire life.”
He went as far as to call the project “one of the highlights of my college career.”
Likewise, Pineda enjoyed meeting and conversing with professional journalists like Maria Elena Salinas, who he grew up watching on Univision, and Leyla Santiago, a CNN correspondent whom he met when she worked at WRAL, an NBC affiliate in Raleigh.
“These were professionals who inspired me to become a journalist and they were next to me, learning from the different sessions and training,” he said.
Surrounded by likeminded peers, Pineda explained that he could feel his self-confidence grow, and this new-found assuredness carried over when he interacted with representatives from professional organizations. Just as the editing process with his mentors was an educational experience, so too was networking.
Pineda said his conversations with recruiters challenged him to tout his own skills and pushed him to “prove to them why I was a fit for their company.”
The feedback he received was largely positive with several organizations wishing he already had a diploma. “Some companies were so interested in me that I was told if I wasn’t still a student, I would have moved onto the next phase of the hiring process for a specific position,” he said.
Should future Elon students consider the NAHJ student project? It’s an emphatic “yes” from Pineda.
“This will be the only time ever in their lives where they will be at an all-Latinx student newsroom,” he said. “Once they go out in the field after college or in ENN, they will most likely be the only or one of the few people of color in their communities. I would tell the student that they should be ready to work, ready to be challenged, and have an open mind to learn from criticism which will help them grow.”
On campus, Pineda is a Communications Fellow and an active member of Elon Student Television and Elon News Network. He was instrumental in the production of the new organization’s first-ever all-Spanish broadcast in May 2017.