I spent some memorable early years in journalism covering college basketball in North Carolina. When I was on press row for Duke-Carolina duels in the late 1990s and 2000s, I was unaware that immigrants from Mexico and Central America were settling in Siler City, some 40 miles to the west, many to work at the nearby chicken plant.
I know all about it now. As Director of Journalism Partnerships at Define American, a nonprofit organization working to humanize the way the media portrays immigrants, I’ve been researching how North Carolina’s news outlets cover immigration. Short answer: not nearly as well as they do basketball.
