Bloomberg’s Micklethwait: We will build our equality coverage

Bloomberg News editor in chief John Micklethwait sent out the following to the editorial and research staff on Monday:

In our Town Halls this month we talked about doing more to cover equality. We have done a lot of good stories since then, with contributions from all over the newsroom. But we know we need to focus even more on the subject as the issues of equality touch every reporting beat — and our global coverage needs to reflect that. So Rakshita Saluja, currently managing editor for TOP in the Americas, will become our global Equality czar, reporting to Jackie Simmons. Rebecca Greenfield’s diversity team will report into Rak, and we will build up a larger Equality task force around the world.  Rak will also drawn on work by by the Real Economy team, ESG, QuickTake, Graphics, Businessweek and so on. Pretty much every company and government we cover is looking at issues of race, diversity and fairness, and we want to capture that.

Just as we set up Green as a way of showcasing and elevating our environment coverage, we want to make Equality a signature issue, where we can bring data and clarity. We already have a lot of building blocks, including the Equality page on our website, our Equality Summit, and Scalett Fu‘s TV show. If our mission is to chronicle capitalism, then we should talk about its shortcomings too — and there are no bigger ones than inequality.

One other thing I would like to clear up unambiguously. In all three town halls I said in the spirit of self criticism that we should have been quicker to appoint Jackie to oversee our coverage of the protests. In the Americas town hall, where Jackie herself was asking the questions, I mumbled part of my reply in a way so that some people have asked whether I was criticizing Jackie for somehow not giving herself that job earlier. That would have been a grossly unfair thing to say: any delay was my fault, as I made clear in the other regions.

Style Change

We are changing our style to capitalize Black when describing people and the community, in line with the recommendation from the Diversity Style Guid www.diversitystyleguide.com and recent changes from the National Association of Black Journalists, among other organizations around the industry. Capitalize White when used in a racial context. See {STYL RACE <Go>} for more specifics on our style. Message global Standards Editor Laura Zelenko with any questions.

We also have added the code NI RACE for news globally about race and issues involving racism, including legal actions concerning race, civil rights, social justice and quality and equity.

Virtual Internships

These are tough times, but we are committed to finding and developing great talent. We are still hiring from other news and research organizations, especially where we have gaps to fill, such as in personal finance. But many of our strongest journalists and analysts have come from our intern and rotator programs. Starting today in the U.S., 40 interns will join us from cities across the country, taking part in our virtual summer internship. The group is diverse in terms of race, gender, geography and background and will be working with us for the next 10 weeks. Virtual internships are also taking place with our newsrooms in Asia and Europe. Some of these students took part in one of our global financial journalism programs offered as part of Bloomberg’s Global Business and Financial Journalism Education Initiative. The initiative, started in 2002 in collaboration with corporate philanthropy, includes 29 programs across the globe.