SN&R has a diversity problem

This past Monday night, SN&R co-editors Rachel Leibrock and Nick Miller met with more than three dozen community members at the local National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s headquarters in Oak Park. People shared emotional, angry, thoughtful, smart and impactful stories about their lives—and why they were offended by this paper’s recent illustrations of Mayor Kevin Johnson.

“This is about a picture, about the way it depicted the African-American male.”

“I didn’t read the article. All I saw was the picture.”

“It’s embarrassing to me, because I am from Sacramento.”

“You don’t have diversity, and I have a problem with that.”

The reason for this meeting, in case you hadn’t heard, was a press conference that the NAACP held on Thursday, July 9. At this gathering, the group characterized our illustrated depictions of Mayor Johnson as racist.

In a statement, the NAACP alleged that these images showed a “crazed and violent” mayor. They said the way he was drawn resurrected racial stereotypes from this country’s bigoted past.

How do we respond to this? Well, it’s very clear that some people are genuinely upset and offended by the illustration. We recognize this. We hear this. This is unfortunate and regrettable.

At the same time, we appreciate the overwhelming support from the community, and from those who’ve come to our defense. We stand by the work of our writers and designers here at SN&R. But we’re not going to spend this editorial rationalizing our work or explaining our intent.

What we are going to do is talk about what’s very clear after our meeting with the NAACP: SN&R has a diversity problem.

Some of us here at this paper spent this past week at a conference with hundreds of media colleagues from all over the country. We writers and editors, designers and sales people converged on Salt Lake City—irony not lost—for the annual Association of Alternative Newsmedia gathering. But the big take-home from the meeting wasn’t tips on how to improve reporting or how to sell more ads.

The No. 1 lesson learned? Journalism is too damn white.

The numbers don’t lie. A survey of 37 (out of 113) member publications showed that, while women and the LGBT community are very well-represented, our media companies employ few people of color. And our newsrooms are getting even whiter.

Of the media outlets that responded to the survey: only 12.6 percent of employees are people of color (Hispanic, black, Asian, etc.), and that number dipped from the last time AAN did the survey (in 2011, when it was 14 percent).

We don’t need to explain to you why it’s important for newsrooms to be represented by a diverse mix of people. We will explain, though, the first of hopefully many changes that will be happening at SN&R.

First, co-editors Rachel and Nick would like to announce a new SN&R Diversity Internship program. Beginning next week, we will be accepting applications for paid internships in our editorial department.

Our goal for this Diversity Internship is to both inject SN&R with more voices from aspiring journalists of color, and also to prepare these writers and editors for successful careers in media. (Learn more about the SN&R Diversity Internship by emailing Rachel and Nick at coeditors@newsreview.com.)

This new program is just the beginning. We enjoyed a powerful and thoughtful conversation with the community this week, and it won’t be the end of our dialogue. These issues won’t be resolved overnight. Going forward, we will strive to keep talking, to keep working, to do better.