One big-picture story is worth 20 briefs. Remember, if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. Hmong and Iu Mien shamans may not even exist 30 years from now. Historical and analytical pieces with a news hook have also gotten A1 play. For example, pieces on slain civil rights heroes Medgar Evers and Viola Liuzzo were triggered by news events, And Martin Luther King Day provided a great excuse to write stories about how Dr. King's legacy was being taught in the schools, or carried on in the church.
Good yarns get good play.
Every story has to stand on its own merits. Our goal is tell an interesting or compelling story that happens to involve a person or persons of a particular ethnic or racial group. If it involves people from several groups, so much the better. One of the most heart-rending stories I've come across was about Sugihara, the Japanese consul to Lithuania during World War II who risked his life and sacrificed his career to write exit visas for thousands of Jews who otherwise would have been killed by the Nazis. The story contained interviews with several Jewish migr s in California who had been saved by Sugihara, as well as interviews with Sugihara's widow and son, who related how Sugihara was reduced to selling light bulbs door to door after the war.