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- The New York Times plans to increase its percentage of Black and Latino leaders by 50% by 2025.
- An internal review found Black people make up just 9% of employees, the same share as in 2015.
- The Times’ review follows several high-profile scandals involving racism over the last year.
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The New York Times leadership said the company’s workforce needs to change upon releasing a sweeping review of the firm’s diversity and culture.
The esteemed paper is “too often a difficult place to work” for people of color, especially for Black and Latino workers, executive editor Dean Baquet, CEO Meredith Kopit Levien, and chairman Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. said in a letter.
Their review revealed the number of Black people make up just 9% of employees at The Times – the same share as in 2015. The number of Black leaders has increased by just 1%.
Now, the Grey Lady plans to increase the percentage of Black and Latino employees in leadership by 50% by the end of 2025.
The newsroom review follows several high-profile scandals involving racism at the company. Editorial page editor James Bennet resigned in June after he signed off on piece by Republican Sen. Tom Cotton arguing to “send in the troops” to anti-police brutality protests. Reporter Donald McNeil Jr. left the paper in February after the Daily Beast reported he used the n-word and made stereotypical comments about Black teenagers on a student trip.
"For over a century and a half, The New York Times has succeeded in part by recognizing when it needed to change," Baquet, Levien, and Sulzberger said in the letter. "This is such a moment."
Baquet, Levien, and Sulzberger announced a multi-step plan to improve the firm's diversity and culture, which includes deepening support for employee resource groups, creating a new diversity office in Human resources, and update the company on diversity progress twice a year.
The review, conducted by editors Amber Guild, Carolyn Ryan and Anand Venkatesan, said Black workers, particularly Black women, rated the company lower across nearly all categories of the Times' 2020 employee survey, and Black employees outside leadership leave the company at a higher rate than white colleagues.
Asian-American women reported feeling "invisible and unseen," and said they regularly are called the name of different colleagues of the same race.
Just 5% of the company's leadership roles are held by Black people, and 4% by Latino employees. Native American employees represent less than 1% of all staffers, Latino employees represent 7%, Black employees represent 9%, and Asian employees represent 14%.
People of color hold 33% of all roles on staff, and 23% of leadership roles.