Former Quartz EIC Seward on diversifying a newsroom

Zach Seward, the former editor in chief and CEO of financial news site Quartz, writes about the strategies it used to improve newsroom diversity.

Seward writes, “Employees of color grew to half of the newsroom and 42% of the whole company, up from 31% in mid-2020. We still had pretty homogenous leadership and failed in all sorts of other ways. Racial justice is a life’s work. But it’s in that spirit I thought it would be useful to share what we learned about diversity initiatives that actually work, or at least worked for us.

Adopting a formal affirmative-action plan

“Most U.S. companies, running scared of discrimination lawsuits, design their employment practices from a defensive crouch. For instance, HR departments often collect demographic data from job candidates, to show the company’s hiring process isn’t biased in the aggregate, yet rarely allow managers to see that information when making individual decisions about whom to hire.

“Contrary to what you may have heard, it is not inherently discriminatory to consider a job candidate’s race or gender. Of course, it easily can be, which explains all the legal angst around hiring practices, even at progressive organizations that profess a strong commitment to diversity. But the U.S. government has very clear rules allowing employers to give preference to candidates from groups under-represented at the company. You just have to be deliberate about it and create an affirmative-action plan that adheres to the rules.”

Read more here.