NJ.com’s Mosaic marks 1st anniversary of championing diversity, amplifying voices

For a small I edited last week about the most non-English languages spoken in New Jersey, there was one data point missing I wished we had: How many languages are spoken in our fair state?

español is the most spoken among the Top 7 languages (rounded out by Chinese, Portuguese, Hindi, Gujarati, Arabic and Tagalog), surprisingly, 150 kept popping up in online searches with weak or no attribution for the total number. Data reporter Amira Sweilem contacted the U.S. Census Bureau to find out.

It's 128.

The 2022 data also tells us New Jersey has 232 different ethnicities represented, with one in four residents born abroad – a mosaic of peoples, if you will.

This week, I had the privilege of being guest editor for NJ Advance Media's website, Mosaic.nj.com , which celebrates its first anniversary since launching in September of 2023.

"In its first year, Mosaic has told many stories about people of color, stories that perhaps never would have been told," said Ronnie Agnew, general manager of NJ Advance Media, which provides content to The Star-Ledger, NJ.com and Mosaic. "We've focused on social issues, community news, and a range of topics that have accomplished what we intended when Mosaic was created — and that is to amplify the voices of people of color."

Earlier this summer, I told you about Mosaic sponsoring North to Shore , the multi-city, three-week music, arts and culture festival celebrating New Jersey's diversity. Since then, Mosaic has only grown.

Karim Shamsi-Basha, one of your favorite food and culture columnists , was brought on to Mosaic for his artful eye at spotting the uniqueness in our multicultural state. Mosaic is the online home to his recently launched humor column.

While we have contributors from around the newsroom, the core staff comprises veteran reporter Steve Strunsky, who covers all things Newark, Vashti Harris, our culture trends and entertainment writer, and Sweilem, who crunches numbers and covers health and education inequities. Ande Richards, who previously worked on the NJ.com opinion desk, covers health and social justice. She also authors Mosaic's weekly newsletter.

Don't miss an issue of our FREE Mosaic newsletter! Get it delivered each Tuesday right into your inbox .

Additionally, the site benefits from contributions by freelancers, guest columnists and a handful of New Jersey news partners, such as NJ Spotlight News and Chalkbeat Newark .

"Mosaic is an incredible opportunity to showcase New Jersey's rich culture, and I am excited about the possibilities to further develop and grow the site," said Yvette Ousley, interim editor of Mosaic.

This summer, Ousley was appointed to head up Mosaic after its inaugural editor retired. A seasoned former Philadelphia Inquirer editor, Ousley joined NJ Advance Media team of news editors in 2022. Her distinguished career has been defined producing impactful journalism and telling the stories of diverse communities with empathy.

"Moving forward, I'd like to find more ways to increase our visibility and reach," Ousley said. "I'd also like to publish more guest columns, determine how we translate our content into some of the many languages spoken in New Jersey, and expand our coverage of disabled, veteran and other communities."

The concept of Mosaic came about several years ago from the minds at NJAM's Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Committee, which I'm proud to say I co-chaired for nearly six years. At our weekly meetings, we discussed the importance of providing more diverse voices to reflect the communities the newsroom serves, including LGBTQ and other marginalized people.

I've said this before, and I'll say it again, one of the things I love most about New Jersey is that it's a true melting pot of peoples and ideas from around the world. Mosaic strives to elevate people, places, things important to communities of color.

For instance, the days I was guest editor, we published a roundup of Egyptian and Middle Eastern festivals scheduled for this month, a three-day Latin film festival to mark Hispanic Heritage Month, an endearing story about a Jets football star who visited Newark to talk about tackling bullying, and I got first crack at cracking up reading Karim's humor column.

I also learned that the precise number of languages spoken in the Garden State is — not 150, as I wrote earlier in this year .

Coincidentally, Mosaic's first editor, Robin Wilson-Glover, emailed me to say she's honored she'll be recognized with a Lifetime Achievement Award in New Jersey Journalism by the nonprofit Corporation for New Jersey Local Media at its Byrne Kean Dinner next week. The dinner is named after popular state governors Democrat Brendan Byrne and Republican Tom Kean, whose famous "Byrne-Kean Dialogues" published in The Star Ledger from 2012 to 2018 .

Like many of us journalists of color, Wilson-Glover dedicated much of her career to ensuring diversity wasn't an afterthought in the newsrooms where she worked at. We were immensely proud to have collaborated as co-chairs of the diversity committee on launching Mosaic in one of the most diverse states in the country.

"Heading into our second year, we want to take Mosaic to the next level," Agnew, our general manager, told me. "More and more people know about us now. That will only make future stories we tell stronger, richer, compelling and impactful."

Enrique Lavín is

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