When colleagues talk to Googoo about diversity in journalism, she tells them the same story each time. In j-school at Ryerson University in 1992, a professor said her pitches weren’t relevant. Articles about Aboriginal communities don’t resonate with mainstream readers, the teacher told her—“advice” she would later hear from many colleagues. “But I don’t want to tell stories to another audience,” Googoo says. Today, she writes for, and about, Aboriginal Peoples.

After graduating, Googoo worked as a reporter for CBC, Halifax’s The Chronicle Herald and Aboriginal People’s Television Network (APTN) before completing a graduate degree in journalism at Columbia University. That’s where she found the inspiration to leave established newspapers and TV stations and start her own initiative.

Since launching Kukukwes.com in August, Googoo has become a prominent Indigenous voice in Atlantic Canada. She has been travelling across the region, covering stories such as the election of chiefs in various First Nations bands and the Sipekne’katik’s opposition to a gas storage project in Nova Scotia. “I have a very specific interest,” she says, “and a very niche audience that is interested.”

Meaningful diversity requires letting a whole community see itself reflected in coverage, Googoo says, but most outlets don’t realize that. She was tired of reporting for non-Aboriginal editors and producers in her various positions (outside of APTN). Yes, there were other reporters, but she asks, “Where are the Aboriginal decision-makers?” Without them, stories about Indigenous people can be the first to be cut.

For Googoo, the solution was to tackle the problem head-on by creating her own website. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a conversation to be had: we should be talking about diversity in the newsroom and in journalism education. Coverage of Indigenous issues in mainstream outlets has been developing, she says, but there’s still room for improvement. More reporters are making an effort now to get things right about Indigenous culture. But sometimes, she says, it takes a crisis for journalists to turn their gaze to Aboriginal communities.

“I don’t care about mainstream anymore,” Googoo says. “I do my own thing.” That’s why her website is thriving.

Frustrated by this, she focused her journalism on under-represented groups. The staff writer for Vice Canada has covered discrimination against LGBT groups, women and various cultures and races. She wants to shine a light on a different side of stories and often sees “systemic factors at play.” She picks them apart for her readers.

In January, Manisha and her editor discussed how to cover the shootings in La Loche, Saskatchewan. Krishnan wrote a piece focusing on what she considers the root cause of the event—a lack of basic necessities for Indigenous communities.

Krishnan is skeptical of the idea that Canada is a discrimination-free society and feels fortunate to be able to write stories that show this isn’t the case. Vice also gives her the freedom to insert her opinion into stories. In an article about how the Alberta government released recommendations for schools to make their transgender students feel comfortable—“a good thing,” she writes—Krishnan describes the “absolute shitstorm” that ensued among members of the population who were against progressive developments such as gender-neutral spaces in bathrooms. She writes that studies show one-third of Canadian trans youth have attempted suicide. She hopes showing the discrimination makes articles about systemic problems powerful.

Krishnan also received a lot of attention for “Let’s Stop Pretending the Guy Who Pepper Sprayed Syrian Refugees Doesn’t Reflect Canada.” In it, Krishnan asks how Canadians can possibly argue that xenophobia is not present here. She received many comments on the piece that started a serious conversation on the topic and, later, a few radio shows interviewed her about it.

Krishnan says our reaction to acts of discrimination is often to say, “this isn’t Canada” and dismiss it as a fluke. She aims to call people out on that.

Femifesto, the Toronto-based feminist organization that published the document, told Strapagiel it was being revised and asked her to be part of the advisory committee. The new version was published in December 2015 and was called “Use the Right Words: Media Reporting on Sexual Violence in Canada.” It outlines how to interview survivors of assault and the correct language to use in such stories. It also educates on rape culture, discussing concepts like survivor blaming and the sexism ingrained in society—elements of women’s issues Strapagiel has often written about.

During the Ghomeshi trial, Strapagiel observed how many journalists picked up the narrative she saw presented by his lawyer Marie Henein—a narrative meant to discredit the witnesses and place blame on them. When Henein produced a letter to Ghomeshi from witness Lucy DeCoutere in court, she did so theatrically, carefully crafting the way it was received. “Media coverage used that same language, calling it a ‘handwritten love letter,’ and acting like it was this big moment,” Strapagiel says. “Which is exactly what the defence would want. And I feel like people played right into it.”

She says that unlike many newsrooms, BuzzFeed promotes diversity and inclusion, and she’s able to write about things she’s passionate about. “I’m actively encouraged to cover LGBT issues,” she says. “We set goals around it.” While there are different definitions of the word “diversity,” Strapagiel believes it means having a range of backgrounds, viewpoints and identities. “Newsrooms can show great diversity, but I think it’s important it translates to the actual work being put out.”

There’s a fine line between utilizing diversity and labelling someone based on an aspect of his or her life. “In any newsroom, when you are identified as ‘the gay reporter,’ or ‘the Black reporter,’ or ‘the diversity reporter’ or whatever—you want to cover these things because you understand the importance of them, but you don’t want to get pigeonholed,” Strapagiel says. “And that’s a struggle that I still haven’t figured out.”

It was a mark of trust for a reporter who worked for many years to build it since graduating from creative communications at Winnipeg’s Red River College in 1987. After working in radio in B.C. and then at the Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal, Sanders became a copy editor for the Free Press in 1997 before returning to reporting in 2000. She’s still just a general assignment reporter, she insists, though she’s unofficially the paper’s diversity reporter. “Diversity is just a title that’s been slapped on,” she says. But it’s a term she dislikes—all reporters should be diversity reporters.

Until 20 years ago, Winnipeg’s lack of diversity was so severe that, according to Sanders, someone from Portugal or Italy was considered exotic. After 9/11, Manitoba witnessed a large influx of newcomers from around the world. But no one covered these new communities except when something bad happened, perpetuating negative stereotypes and distancing these groups from journalists. It was an Islamophobic time, and reporting involved a lot of rent-a-quote from people who were otherwise ignored by mainstream media or vilified. There was no bridge-building, she says, adding emotionally, “It made you want to cry.”

Sanders was covering a shooting fatality when a leader of the Punjabi community refused to talk to her. “He was the first person to say something,” she says. He didn’t trust her and he didn’t feel safe talking to her because he knew the report would just make his community look bad. “You need to build up some trust,” he said.

So Sanders formed connections among the various ethnic groups in Winnipeg. Trust gave her access to the Eritrean community, enabling her to report on how they were coerced to pay a diaspora tax to a regime they fled. In December 2011, about 100 Eritrean protesters demonstrated outside the Free Press, upset that Sanders’s stories portrayed them all as having terrorist links. Then-editor Margo Goodhand met with protesters, listened to their concerns and explained the newspaper’s side of the story.

Journalists should help readers get to know the people in their communities in order to make them less scary, according to Sanders. And that means doing more than just the big news stories. “Go and do the fluff,” she says, “because it’s not the fluff that’s the important thing, it’s the people—it’s the contacts, the connections you make.”