Management Accepts “Spirit” of Staff Suggestions
An internal committee at the New York Times has warned management in a confidential report that “The Times is a newspaper at risk. If it fails to diversify its work force and to make attendant changes in its corporate culture, the Times will inevitably lose stature.”
“The business case is clear,” it continued. “The minority market is the fastest-growing segment in the United States, with a growth rate of nearly 12 percent, according to a 2005 report from the United States census bureau. That same census report found that the weakest growth segment is the white market, which is expanding at the barely perceptible rate of 1.1 percent.
“Those trends are alarming when compared with the demographics of The Timesâ??s market and workforce. Our total employee population is 79 percent white and 21 percent minority, according to the newspaperâ??s figures through the second quarter of this year. The breakdown of Times readers mirrors that of the staff: 78 percent are white, according to The Timesâ??s advertising department.
“The bottom line: The Times is joined at the hip with the nationâ??s slowest-growing market segment, as is the newspaper industry in general.”
The paper’s Diversity Council, formed in October 2004 at the request of publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr., made eight recommendations in a 39-page report, including appointment of a senior vice president whose primary responsibilities would be to oversee diversity efforts.
It also recommended mandatory diversity awareness training programs for all employees, and said the ghost of Jayson Blair, the former Times reporter who fabricated stories and left the paper in 2003, still hovers unfairly over diversity efforts. “In the minds of many,” it said, “Mr. Blair remains an example of newspaper diversity run amok.” Blair is African American.
The report continued, “As The Times moves forward with its diversity efforts, we believe it is crucial for its management to address the Blair concerns in a strong and meaningful way, to assure its employees that its diversity effort is sound and to assure its readers and shareholders that diversity efforts at The Times are being properly managed.”
It urged that “all employees must set and meet an annual diversity goal as part of their performance plan,” and that the portion of management bonuses tied to diversity should be doubled from 10 percent to 20 percent.
Times management answered with a 15-page report, also confidential, that embraced the goals of the Diversity Council but not always its recommendations, saying it could accomplish the goals in other ways. “We embrace the recommendations of the New York Times Diversity Council as important guideposts . . .” it said.
The response said that management’s approach had boosted the ratio of minority journalists in the newsroom to 17.6 percent, “our highest ratio ever. Among new hires to the newsroom during 2005, 30% (or 26 out of 85 hires) were people of color.”
The committee, citing a figure of 17.5 for African Americans, Hispanics and Asians, noted that “it is a mere two percentage points larger than it was six years ago, when it stood at slightly more than 15.5 percent.”
The top news managers, known as “the masthead” because their names are published daily with other company executives on the editorial page, said they would leave the idea of a diversity officer to Sulzberger and to David Norton, new senior vice president of corporate human resources.
The masthead also said the Times planned to “shift the paradigm” on its recruiting and diversity strategy from reliance on the conventions of the journalist organizations of color.
“We have to find a better way to invest the money we spend at those events, not just as a cost savings initiative, but to improve our strategy,” it said, disclosing that it is working on a program for Latino student journalists similar to the New York Times Student Journalism Institute, conducted at historically black Dillard University in New Orleans.
The Times plans to launch the Latino counterpart in 2007 at Florida International University.
The Student Journalism Institute was portrayed as exemplifying the Times’ new emphasis.
Much of the management focus appeared to be on be diversifying the lower ranks, though the Diversity Council report called “troubling” that “less than 14 percent of The Times’s newsroom managers are African-American, Asian, Hispanic or from another non-white group.”
The council pointed to the death last August of Ebony and Jet magazine founder John H. Johnson as an example of the need for greater diversity at the paper.
“His obituary was run on an inside page of The Times, as it was in many other major newspapers. Some African-Americans believed Mr. Johnsonâ??s obituary deserved front-page placement and saw the fact that it wasnâ??t played there as a case of white editors failing to recognize his cultural significance,” it said.
The council consisted of 23 news and business employees selected from more than 100 who volunteered. It was chaired by Jose Lopez, a picture editor, and Hussain Ali-Khan, vice president for real estate development. It formed subcommittees on outreach, benchmarking and history, worked for 10 months, spoke with more than 200 employees, and consulted leading diversity experts, it said. However, “it was much more difficult to attract and hear from white employees.”
The report’s release follows January’s announcements of seven news management promotions, none of a journalist of color.
And last week, the Washington Post held staff discussions about its own diversity committee’s report.
Like the Post report, the Times council cited cultural barriers: “Many participants said that some of The Timesâ??s truly commendable cultural values could be a double-edged sword when it came to making changes. For example, they suggested that widely accepted beliefs in The Timesâ??s ‘liberalmindedness’ and its ‘culture of impartiality’ brought a refusal to admit that there were problems and a resistance to change. Many complained that The Times might not engage in enough true self-reflection. (One person called it a ‘refusal to speak the truth to ourselves like we do about the news.’).”
The Times Diversity Council’s recommendations:
- “1. Senior management, starting with the publisher, the chief executive officer and the executive editor, must do more to lead by example on issues of diversity.”
- “2. The Times must appoint a senior vice president whose primary responsibilities are to oversee diversity efforts.”
- “3. Managers must be held accountable through the bonus program for their efforts on diversity. Increasing the portion of bonuses that is tied to diversity, to 20 percent from 10 percent, will make a strong statement about The Timesâ??s commitment.”
- “4. The existing Recruiting Committee in the newsroom must be given formal status as the gateway for all hiring to ensure that diversity is given full consideration. The newsroom committee and the Staffing and Diversity Committee on the business side should adopt a uniform approach to their work.”
- “5. The Times must invest in a recruiting strategy and promote its commitment to diversity on its Web sites and in other communication.”
- “6. Mentoring and career development programs must be expanded to the newsroom, both to help retain promising employees and to rejuvenate employees who are languishing.”
- “7. Diversity awareness training programs must be mandatory for all employees and all employees must set and meet an annual diversity goal as part of their performance plan. Discretionary bonuses should be awarded to non-management employees for exceptional diversity efforts.”
- “8. The Diversity Council must continue to meet regularly to advise the publisher and the senior vice president for diversity.”
Excerpts from the masthead replies:
- “1. In a variety of ways, we are holding each other and ourselves accountable more than ever. . . . beginning this year, the news masthead will meet quarterly to review diversity progress to ensure that all candidates, regardless of their background, benefit in terms of both recruiting and career development. The review will focus on individual newsroom departments and sections as part of an effort to make sure that we are attracting and developing top talent throughout the ranks of the newsroom.”
- “2. We wholeheartedly endorse the spirit of the recommendation and support the creation of such a position as long as it spans across all the Timesâ?? properties. . . . We leave the final decision on this recommendation for Arthur and David Norton, our new senior vice president of corporate human resources.”
- “3. The Timesâ??s bonus program is clearly one of the most effective ways to hold managers accountable. Yet while our program has a percentage tied to performance on diversity, rarely has anyoneâ??s bonus been cut for not making progress on these goals. The reasons for this are sometimes more nuanced than might appear at first glance, but nonetheless, we agree that we must consistently and without favor enforce the bonus penalty in order to send one clear message: The Times is committed to diversity and will not reward those managers who shirk their responsibility to this issue. . . .”
“Going forward, the newsroomâ??s senior leadership is particularly interested in the councilâ??s suggestion that managers set their own diversity goals as a way of establishing measurable standards. With this approach, managers who do not meet their goals could be placed on a ‘performance action plan’ to foster improvement in this area.”
- “4. Empowering the Recruiting Committee, which is led by Jill Abramson, Bill Schmidt, Nancy Sharkey and Sheila Rule, to review and approve all hiring has gone a long way toward redressing past problems and as it becomes more deeply institutionalized in the newsroom, its impact will deepen. The committee is now the engine driving diversity in the newsroom; it is an engine fueled by the unswerving commitment of the senior executive who leads it, and by the partnership the committee has forged with department heads. We know that we will make greater strides as time goes by . . .”
- “5. Our new strategy puts greater weight on developing our own diversity initiatives, including the Times Institutes and the company-wide talent bank we initiated at last summerâ??s NABJ convention.”
- “6. The appointment of Susan Edgerley to the newsroom masthead [as associate managing editor for career development] underscores the importance of career development in the newsroom. . . .the newsroom is also helping to develop a company-wide talent bank of diverse reporters and editors. We believe that such a talent bank could represent a significant career development vehicle for minority journalists and the best way for the Times to recruit diverse talent from within our own corporate ranks. We believe the development of a tracking and promotion system for our journalists throughout the company could be one of our most significant diversity investments, for 2006 and well beyond.”
- “7. We believe we need a diversity awareness and training program that suits our unique culture and character. We believe the Diversity Council has an important role to play in helping the company design an effective program.
“While a more fully formed proposal is being developed, we will enhance our current training strategy by including the following:
“- Outside speaker series discussing diversity-related topics
“- Presentations about diversity by appropriate employees and executives
“- Expansion of ‘diversity and leadership’ study groups, incorporating the participation of business-side masthead executives. . . .
“- Enhancement of new-hire orientation with a segment on The Timesâ?? commitment to diversity.
“Both the business and news sides support the idea of requiring employees to set and meet annual diversity goals, but the initial focus will be on managers.”
- “8. The Diversity Council has done invaluable work and has been a model for news and business side collaboration. It has been an important vehicle for getting grassroots feedback through its outreach lunches and other activities. A successor council could continue this important work as well as tackling new missions.”