After a three-year run as a section at The Temple News, Intersection will now function as a beat within the News, Sports, Features and Opinion sections.
Though the content of Intersection stories and the amount produced each week will remain the same, The Temple News’ senior staff made this decision with the goal of creating more collaboration across sections upon the realization that much of the newspaper’s reporting on students’ varying identities already exists outside of Intersection articles.
The new changes serve as an expansion of Intersection rather than its demolition, and will encourage all sections to take a critical look at their reporting by acknowledging sources’ multiple identities.
The structure of the remaining four sections will not change drastically, but there will be additional articles in each section under the Intersection beat.
While the establishment of Intersection encouraged The Temple News’ staff to produce articles that amplified voices from community members and students within marginalized groups, the Editorial Board believes this work should be the responsibility of the entire newspaper, not just one section.
Intersection was initially created in Fall 2018 as a means for reporters to capture multiple identities and perspectives through articles and personal essays, according to a letter written by then-Editor-in-Chief Gillian McGoldrick.
“In the past, The Temple News hasn’t done its job of telling the whole story,” McGoldrick wrote. “We have been missing the experiences and the narratives of students, staff and community residents for years because we have been a predominantly white institution on campus.”
The section was established as a space for, “people with marginalized or conflicting identities learn about themselves while on campus,” McGoldrick wrote.
Since then, The Temple News has widened its reporting by covering topics like green space advocacy in North Philadelphia, teammates bonding over a shared identity and North Philadelphia stigmas and how to combat them.
The Editorial Board commends Intersection reporters and editors for the work they accomplished during the past three years, but recognizes it has been difficult to truly fulfill the initial purpose of the section. As The Temple News’ sourcing became more diverse and the content began to focus more on people’s differing identities, finding topics to categorize under Intersection alone became increasingly difficult.
When Intersection was created, the hope was for readers to feel empowered by The Temple News’ content and to actively engage with the paper, regardless of whether they resonated with the content or refuted it. That hope for readers to feel represented and to think analytically about articles remains the same today, and The Editorial Board aims to do the Temple and North Central community justice by making this change to incorporate Intersection into all sections at The Temple News.
The Editorial Board hopes this change will produce in-depth reporting on students’ identities and how those identities impact their Temple experience to become an essential part of reporting throughout the entire paper.
Articles that fit the Intersection criteria are no longer an add-on to the paper, but rather, a responsibility for all reporters.
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