Readers can soon expect to see the first batch of stories from a new partnership between The Salt Lake Tribune and the nonprofit Amplify Utah focused on highlighting the state’s diverse communities and engaging younger readers.
After the yearlong project was announced in December, student journalists at Salt Lake Community College began reporting during the spring semester.
With Amplify Utah’s website now live and students finishing up their reporting in the next couple of weeks, Utahns will be able to find their work online and through The Tribune, according to Marcie Young Cancio, the nonprofit’s executive director and an assistant professor of journalism and digital media at SLCC.
Young Cancio — a veteran newspaper reporter, magazine editor and digital and television news executive — founded Amplify Utah last summer to increase diversity in local media. Over the past few months, she’s worked with students in an introductory journalism class at SLCC to cover a broad range of diversity, equity, inclusion and representation issues. Journalists from The Tribune have also visited the class virtually over the past semester to provide insights and tips.
“These students have really taken this seriously,” said Young Cancio, as they’ve learned not just how to interview, report and write articles for the public but how to amplify stories and voices from their communities.
According to Young Cancio, there’s this “outdated idea” that journalists give “voice to the voiceless,” when really, “everyone has a voice.” They just may not have the same platform to share their voice, she said, and that’s where this new collaboration steps in.
Young Cancio said she’s “really pleased” with the work the students have done. Amplify Utah -- which can be found at amplifyutah.org -- will showcase and archive all the stories, photos and videos from this project, which will be available for media outlets to publish for free.
