Read on Twitter
Bravo to these LAT staffers. This gap is exceedingly bad in LA of all places, but the problem runs very deep, and are industry wide.
Latinos are 20% of the US population. Repeat after me: One Latino on staff is not enough for you to feel good about diversity in your newsroom! https://twitter.com/palomaesquivel/status/1285575590314033153
Latinos are 20% of the US population. Repeat after me: One Latino on staff is not enough for you to feel good about diversity in your newsroom! https://twitter.com/palomaesquivel/status/1285575590314033153
But that’s not all. Once they get into newsrooms — even when hiring managers are deeply committed to representation — Latino writers are often pigeonholed, or their judgement is questioned pending approval of other colleagues, or their work isn’t elevated by senior management.
To be very clear: I’ve been extremely fortunate in my career to find generous, wonderful mentors who have given me big opportunities. Really big.
But even that level of support hasn’t insulated me from assumptions about my abilities made because of my name and ethnicity.
But even that level of support hasn’t insulated me from assumptions about my abilities made because of my name and ethnicity.
I often write about vulnerable communities, and that has meant often writing about how Latino communities (among many others) are rendered invisible or left behind. I feel a calling to that work. But in my career I have…
…been mindful to build credibility on a range of topics to avoid being written off when I write about Latinos. I went to Harvard, I’m trained on several social scientific methodologies, I’m bilingual, & I’ve worked in the best newsrooms in the US.
And yet it STILL happens.
And yet it STILL happens.
That’s messed up but that’s the truth.
Pigeonholing is rampant. Just look at the low number of non-Anglo reporters on investigative, enterprise, or politics teams at nat'l papers. I understand this is likely not on purpose — but there’s an uncomfortable caste system in newsrooms that we have to confront and correct.
You can’t end up with zero Latino investigative reporters at places like the LAT or NYT or The Post and honestly believe that’s just the cream rising to the top. That’s *insane*. It’s about who you hire, mentor, promote, and trust.
Most of the time I've been one of the lone latinos on whatever team I'm on. But I have been fortunate to work with some excellent Latino colleagues; the NYT national staff stands out as very diverse. (And these are excellent reporters btw.)
But I've never had a Latino boss. Hell, I'm not sure I've ever had a fellow *Mexican-American* colleague even tough MA's are 11% of the US population. There's so much more work to be done even in places where there is representation.
Again, I've benefited from a lot of informal and institutional support in my career. I'm so grateful. My way of showing gratitude is by trying to build an even better newsroom and a better industry. And the truth is ...
I’ve seen firsthand how qualified Latino reporters are kept out of these prestige jobs. Even in the last year, as my husband & I were considering a move back to DC, I had hiring managers (who had never edited me btw) blithely suggest I was not qualified for DC bureau jobs.
I had covered nat'l politics for years, traveled the country writing about the previous presidential campaign, covered two midterm elections, and spent 12 months covering the GOP nominee and eventual president. Among other things. And I wasn't qualified to write about politics?
Was it because I’m a Jose? Honestly, idk. I wondered. A lot. Did someone say something bad about me? WHY? lol. Either way, those calculations certainly could not have been based on my qualifications, previous work experience, writing, ideas, clips, or aggregate recs.
(Part of me now wants to again defend my qualifications and my contributions and my collegiality, but I'm not going to do that again.)
So, yeah, it’s disheartening and embarrassing to be reduced on a whim, and to wonder why it’s happening. And I’m one of the lucky ones. I’m one of the few that could look at an employer or an opportunity and say, you know what, this *environment* isn’t right for me.
Again, I don’t believe in twitter dragging. But I do want to communicate, as someone with relative privilege in this field, that I have experienced this too.
If nothing else, this is what I want to communicate: Don’t let yourself be gaslit into believing you're not qualified.
If nothing else, this is what I want to communicate: Don’t let yourself be gaslit into believing you're not qualified.
How do we fix this? It takes time but it’s not rocket science: make internships affordable; recruit/hire more Latinos, then promote them over time to senior reporting & editing & masthead roles. Make them part of the newsroom’s fabric instead of niche hires.
And once they’re in your newsroom, get to know them, work with them, trust them, amplify their ideas and their work and then CREDIT them for it.
One of the silver linings of this very difficult time has been a new willingness to talk about this stuff more openly. I think these painful conversations are where we're going to find solutions. As always, DMs are open if anyone wants to chat further in private. /fin
(as always, twitter-pardon the typos and plurals and extra spaces lol)
My only regret is that, in the first tweet, there's an instance in which the plurals don't match. This is driving me insane lol.
