Letter from the editor: Daily Bruin seeks to expand hiring of new voices and perspectives

Dear UCLA community,

You are not confined to the sidelines.

This moment is large beyond comprehension: We face a pandemic, a national reckoning with racism, a high-stakes presidential election and record-shattering climate disasters. Yet under social distancing restrictions and remote learning, many students are cut off from traditional avenues for support and action on campus.

We still want you to be part of this year’s UCLA story.

The Daily Bruin staff is still chasing down the news, printing a paper once per week and publishing online content daily. We’re trying our best to offer windows into the 2020 UCLA experience for our present and future readers.

And we are now hiring in all 17 departments. Any and all UCLA students, undergraduates or graduates, are encouraged to apply at apply.uclastudentmedia.com by Oct. 14 at noon. If your interests are in writing, art, coding, design, social media, editing or more, there’s a space for you to hone a wide variety of skills. In light of remote instruction, you don’t need to be on campus to join.

Our goal is to make The Bruin as accessible and inclusive as possible.

At the same time, I am painfully aware that this hasn’t always been the case. In the 2019-2020 academic year, The Bruin released its first annual Diversity Report, which laid out in stark detail how far we have to go to represent all corners of campus equitably.

We plan to conduct this report again, including new data like transfer student status, in late fall to uphold our commitment to transparency with our readers about the work we have to do.

This imbalance in representation is unacceptable. As a source of local and campus news, we cannot tell the stories of our increasingly diverse UCLA community if the entirety of their diverse perspectives is not reflected in our own staff.

Our team is working this year to create a framework for a more inclusive, transparent institution, but it’s the work ahead that will be most critical in our success as a community newspaper. We need thoughtful new voices – your voice – to help the Daily Bruin rise to the challenge of documenting an extraordinary year at UCLA with grace, fairness and poise.

We sincerely hope to see your application.

Best,

Melissa Yasuko Morris

Editor in chief