The New York Times Asks Whether Diversity In The Newsroom Matters
[guest post by Dana]
Today, New York Times Public Editor Margaret Sullivan asks whether diversity in the newsroom matters:
Does it matter who reports the news and comments on it? Does it make a difference if top editors of news organizations include plenty of women as well as plenty of men, and black and Hispanic journalists as well as white ones?
Sullivan offers two sources of support for her position that yes, it does indeed matter.
First:
Nieman Reports, in a recent study, says diverse editorial leadership results in good things for coverage and readers alike. So does a focus on racial issues. The study, which is part of a special edition on race and reporting, quotes Nikole Hannah-Jones, who covers racial injustice for the Times Magazine. “We’ve been hearing the same thing for decades,” she complains — quite rightly. “Newsrooms have not really changed.”
Second:
Separately, the Women’s Media Center looks at diversity from a different angle, gender, and asks: Who is writing the news?
Julie Burton, president of the Women’s Media Center, explains the impact of women, on average, writing only a third of stories at major newspapers. “Media tells us our roles in society – it tells us who we are and what we can be,” Ms. Burton said in an introduction to the report. “This new report tells us who matters and what is important to media – and it is not women.”
How does the NYT fare? Sullivan notes that while Dean Baquet, the paper’s first African-American top editor’s masthead “lacks significant racial diversity,” there is a strong female representation. Also, 5 of 13 editors on his news-side masthead are women. Further, bylines lack a female presence, and blacks are missing from its number of “culture critics”.
Sullivan explains why she believes newsroom diversity matters:
My experience leading a newsroom showed me, time and time again, that staff diversity results in better and different coverage. (I was proud to appoint women of color as executive sports editor and editorial board member, two firsts.) Not in some kind of silly or obvious straight-line way, as in “women write about things that interest women readers.” It’s more this: When the group is truly diverse, the nefarious groupthink that makes a publication predictable and, at times, unintentionally biased, is much more likely to be diminished. And that’s a good thing.
–Dana
Hello.
Dana (86e864) — 6/17/2015 @ 6:34 amThey are so self-unaware that it is almost sad.
JD (3b5483) — 6/17/2015 @ 6:37 amDiversity Matters! … so long as they are Leftist. Then diversify away.
Reminds me of elections in the Soviet Union — vote for whoever you want so long as they are members of the Party.
Rodney King's Spirit (b31520) — 6/17/2015 @ 6:40 amTo the NYT, diversity only refers to skin color and sex [but of course those are rapidly shifting concepts to progs, so they’re rather meaningless].
Walter Cronanty (f48cd5) — 6/17/2015 @ 6:47 amDiversity in thought? They know what that is, and it’s neither spoken of nor allowed. Yet, they claim that they don’t suffer from “groupthink.” What a complete lack of self-awareness.
lemme guess Margaret Sullivan is an upper middle class obamawhore white chick what lives in one of failmerica’s ten most populous cities
happyfeet (a037ad) — 6/17/2015 @ 7:01 amPublicly extolling your company’s diverse culture for professional cover from progressive mobs isn’t really diversity. Just as the charitable man that pronounces his good will to all who will listen isn’t really charitable. If your company is truly diverse in their opinions, because skin color and gender do not ensure a diverse pool of thought, then the proof is in your works, not the number of check boxes your employees select on their application.
Sean (9f0a3a) — 6/17/2015 @ 7:02 amNothing brings out the conservationist in me more than stories like this. To think that trees are sacrificed to make the paper for the NYT ….
nk (9faaca) — 6/17/2015 @ 7:08 amAccording to the latest Gallup poll, “confidence in newspapers is currently at 24 percent, eight points below the historical average. Television news is at 21 percent, nine points below the historical average.”
Dana (86e864) — 6/17/2015 @ 7:15 amNot only are they unselfaware (Is that a word?) but they would ignore any suggestion otherwise.
Only a right wing dinosaur would suggest such a thing.
Mike K (90dfdc) — 6/17/2015 @ 7:23 am
seeRpea (0cf003) — 6/17/2015 @ 7:42 amI first heard this in 1999 , when working at Microsoft. While race and gender were most assuredly checkmarks , culture and educational background were given their boxes as well.
I’d like to hear from Sullivan if being a female and not being white were prerequisite for for the executive sports editor position and editorial board membership. ie: if Dan Patrick was available for the sports position would he have not been considered?
Veterans? Evangelicals? People with a history in business?
Richard Aubrey (f6d8de) — 6/17/2015 @ 7:48 amAs Insty says, that’s just crazy talk.
When it comes to so-called diversity, I love how liberals obsess over the superficial aspects of people and ignore or sidestep the issue of diversity of ideology or political biases. I bet Margaret Sullivan would much rather have a newsroom that was made up of 100% white leftists instead of a newsroom that was staffed by 100% non-white conservatives or even truly moderates.
Mark (a11af2) — 6/17/2015 @ 8:12 amSelf awareness fail. Or as the Best of the Web said (may still, but now behind a paywall) Fox Butterworth is that you?
Loren (1e34f2) — 6/17/2015 @ 8:38 amAnyone see that elephant in the middle of the room? Sullivan clearly cannot.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 6/17/2015 @ 8:46 amI don’t know where she lives, happyfeet, but you called it on the looks. Pretty little white girl with dirty-ish blond hair. Has that “Columbia” look to her. She probably took journalism because “she wanted to make a difference”. You can bet if she’s at NYT he doesn’t live too far away. Gotta be at those Central Park parties on time, you know.
Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie (f4eb27) — 6/17/2015 @ 9:12 amWhen you are dipped, dried, and ossified in liberal bullshit group think as the New York Times newsroom, it doesn’t matter what sorts of genitalia, “group identification”, sexual orientation (Heinz 57 varieties anyone) or skin pigmentation you may have. The mills grinds only one way there.
Comanche Voter (1d5c8b) — 6/17/2015 @ 9:41 amThere is a great amount of diversity of thought at the NYTimes, they span the entire spectrum of political opinion from Maoism to Fabianism.
max (4fdf98) — 6/17/2015 @ 10:36 amOf course diversity matters! I don’t just want to read the simple white privilege point of view. I want to see it all, from other points of view. My day isn’t complete until I’ve been hectored by a black lesbian Jewish transgendered…. well, I lost my train of thought, but you get what I’m all about. White guilt or no tilt! White guilt or no tilt!
Bill H (2a858c) — 6/17/2015 @ 11:19 amthey have one black columnist, now it’s Charles Blow, previously it was Bob Herbert, and Brent Staples, much like the masthead of Buzzfeed, or any other major prog publication,
narciso (ee1f88) — 6/17/2015 @ 11:22 amwith all this “diversity”, the media’s editorials are as predictable as the verdict of a suspects trial, when he acts as the jury.
gardenstateed (d115ca) — 6/17/2015 @ 11:59 amNow if they would only be concerned about the political diversity
in the News Rooms.
Or Academia.
jakee308 (49ccc6) — 6/17/2015 @ 2:16 pmWell thank goodness they have David Brooks to give us the one-tick right of center point of view.
GKH (1943bf) — 6/17/2015 @ 5:16 pmself-satisfied banal npr whore
happyfeet (831175) — 6/17/2015 @ 5:30 pmDoes diversity in the newsroom matter?
If you want to print the truth, no.
CDM (baa86f) — 6/17/2015 @ 5:59 pmIf you want to print propaganda, yes.
Diversity in the news room doesn’t seem to matter. The NYT claims to be diverse, but spews homogenous news.
ErisGuy (76f8a7) — 6/19/2015 @ 4:34 amDiversity?
Rachel Donazel can be black, as long as she thinks like a standard issue NYT reporter.
That’s what passes for diversity in a news room. As long as you’ve got a spray on tan you’re diverse. That is, as long as you fit in with the rest of the Stepford reporters.
Steve57 (48418e) — 6/19/2015 @ 4:43 amЗамечательная идея
Groova (87bfd4) — 6/20/2015 @ 2:28 am