Chronicle sets a goal to diversify staff, content

To our readers,

Within our newsroom, the death of former Houston resident George Floyd and the resulting protest movement for racial justice has been a big story. But it is also more.

The calls for action revived discussions among Chronicle staffers, including many journalists of color who told us they felt disconnected from the processes of hiring, promotion and story discussions. That’s not the type of climate we want in our newsroom, so we’ve set out to do better.

First, a little background: In journalism, as in some other industries, workplaces have struggled to hire and retain journalists of color. At the Chronicle, we generally have fared better than the industry average; roughly 34 percent of our journalists are Black, Hispanic, Asian or identify with

more than one race, compared to 22 percent in the most recent national survey we could find.

About 24 percent of our supervisors are people of color, again slightly better than average.

Our newsroom is less than half female, 44 percent. Among supervisors, 37 percent are

women. Clearly, that’s not a proper representation of women.

And in Houston, a majorityminority community, we do not have enough journalists of color on our staff. We strive to look like the communities we cover, not just because it’s the right thing to do, but because it would improve our journalism.

When we have a newsroom that looks like Houston, our coverage is more likely to look like Houston. The discussions

about stories will be more lively — and more likely to produce journalism that is relevant to as many readers as possible.

So, you might ask, what will we do?

We will work on hiring and retaining the best journalists we can find, with a new emphasis on finding more people of color and more women. When we find them, we will work to put them into positions where they can succeed and advance. And we will review our pay

structure to make certain they are compensated fairly.

We will institute policies to ensure that our reporters, photographers and editors are looking for — and finding — sources that represent the rich mix of diversity in our city and region. And we will audit how we’re doing at that.

This is typical of discussions that have been occurring within newsrooms around the country this summer. Many of them have been more highly publicized, but we wanted you to know what we’re trying to accomplish at the Chronicle.

It’s your newspaper, and you have a stake in the staff — and how that staff assembles our news report, both in print and online at houstonchronicle.com. We’ll have more to say about that in coming weeks.

As always, I thank you for subscribing, and for reading.