This is a longish update to my earlier piece today, "The Grey Lady. What the Shonda Rhimes furor tells us about editorial diversity at the NY Times"
We hear yet again from The New York Times Public Editor Margaret Sullivan: "Diversity, Strong Editing and Moving Forward from the Shonda Rhimes Furor" and she quotes Dean Baquet:
I talked late Monday with Dean Baquet, the executive editor, to get his view. His opinion is of particular interest because he made history a few months ago when he became the first black editor to lead The Times; he replaced the paper’s first female executive editor, Jill Abramson.
Mr. Baquet told me that he sees a problem with diversity in some areas of the newsroom, including among the 20 cultural critics, where there are only two persons of color — the chief book critic, Michiko Kakutani, and a TV critic, Mike Hale — and no black critics. “I would criticize us for that,” Mr. Baquet said. “I would love to diversify that area,” as well as others. He noted that The Times has had black critics in the past, specifically mentioning Margo Jefferson, but now, he said, “it’s an issue and we need to work on it.”
He said that in an era when, for economic reasons, The Times is trying to reduce rather than increase staff (it’s common knowledge that newsroom buyouts are expected soon), diversity efforts become more difficult. “It’s a lot harder to work on it” under those circumstances, he said. “But I’m not going to use that as an excuse. I have an obligation to diversify the staff and I will figure out a way.”
I'd like to offer him a suggestion. No need to increase staff to deal with Alessandra Stanley. Get rid of her. Replace her with someone who actually watches the television shows they review, and who isn't afflicted with "blind spots" around race, racism and stereotyping.
Baquets' comment, cited by Sullivan, on the Stanley piece, did not refute it.
On the specifics, Mr. Baquet said he fully understood that many readers were deeply upset about the article on Ms. Rhimes. He said that its author, Alessandra Stanley, “was trying to make a profound point” about breaking down stereotypes of black women, but “clearly, it wasn’t read that way.” He declined to comment on whether the article was insensitive or offer any other praise or criticism.
Yes, she made a series of profoundly racist stereotyped points. We got it. Clearly we can read Mr. Baquet.
We'll be waiting to see what you do about it. You could start by retracting the piece. Then by subtracting Stanley from the staff and doing something about the three editors who let it go into print. The rest, well...we can wait and see what your solutions are for Grey Lady diversity.
We will be watching.