The New York Times issued a press release in March 2018 noting its commitment to diversity – and backing it up with statistics.
The nut graf:
Over the past three years, representation of women has increased at every level of The Times. Over all, our employees are now evenly split between men and women. Women in News and Opinion leadership increased to 46 percent in 2017, from 38 percent in 2015, and in business departments, to 46 percent, from 41 percent.
The trend is not as uniformly positive for people of color. There have been gains in places, including in business leadership, where people of color now make up 21 percent of the total, up from 16 percent in 2015. But gains like this have not been consistent…
Some thoughts on this:
* This isn’t required for newspapers for First Amendment reasons. (The rules are different for over-the-air broadcasters, who use public airwaves and are assumed to have obligations to the public.)
* This isn’t new for over-the-air broadcasters, whose reports to the Federal Communications Commission require diversity information. (Diversity seems more obvious for broadcasters, anyway, as viewers want to see people who look like them.)
* This isn’t required for cable broadcasters. Plenty of commenters, often with a left-leaning bent, have teed off on this.
* Most groups don’t issue press releases about this (or most other topics) unless it’s good news.
* The numbers aren’t so good nationally. The American Society of News Editors’ latest annual report shows continued backsliding, attributed to overall declines in news jobs.
* It’s just one part of a national conversation. CNN earlier this week reported that three Interior Department employees said its director, Ryan Zinke, repeatedly said that diversity isn’t important. The story said he followed with “what’s important is having the right person for the right job. (The problem with this is that a statement might suggest there can’t be both.) The agency denies the report.
Why does all of this matter? Talk among yourselves.