Dow Jones CEO: We will review hiring practices, diversity in leadership and pay equity

Dow Jones & Co. chief executive officer Almar Latour sent out the following message on Monday:

Hello,

Over the past few weeks, hundreds of you have shared your experiences of racial inequality, as well as your views about how we can increase diversity, both in our newsrooms and across all of Dow Jones.

Your feedback has included highly personal accounts, painful experiences and concerns about racial diversity in our workforce. Specific issues range from limited career development to lack of diversity in leadership, and from unwelcoming comments from colleagues to an absence of transparency on pay – and more. I am deeply grateful for the dialogue and openness shown by so many. I share the sentiment, as one colleague put it, that “this normal is not OK” at Dow Jones.

We are now entering a new chapter for Dow Jones, in which an inclusive community forms the foundation of our strength. Company leaders and I will continue to listen to you and take in your suggestions and calls for change, but we must accelerate meaningful action.

This weekend, I have kicked off a sweeping, in-depth review of our hiring practices, diversity in our leadership, training and career development, as well as pay equity. This review will take place with greater accountability, expertise and urgency. It will be led by Chief People Officer Kamilah Mitchell-Thomas, who will have a broad, company-wide remit, and my full support, to formulate a comprehensive, new approach to diversity and inclusion. This initiative will significantly expand Kamilah’s ongoing diversity efforts.

In our newsrooms, we will pursue change as well. Matt Murray, Editor-in-Chief of The Wall Street Journal, will continue to meet with those of you who have put forward suggestions for improvements in the Journal newsroom, including a group of 150 journalists who have outlined in detail a wide range of concerns about coverage, hiring and transparency related to diversity. Matt will work closely with Kamilah in areas outside of news coverage, over which he has sole responsibility.

In addition, we will initiate new ways of engaging with the Inclusive Resource Groups, providing different opportunities to interact with company leaders and top editors at The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, MarketWatch and Financial News. And we will seek to expand our work with colleges, partnering with those that share our commitment to creating unique opportunities for diverse students and graduates in our newsrooms and across Dow Jones.

At an individual level, if you need time out to reflect, please don’t hesitate to use the additional leave that was recently introduced to help you deal with the already challenging times we were facing due to coronavirus. Those of you in the U.S. can also continue to use News Corp’s philanthropic donation matching program.

Finally, I would just like to reiterate that I hear, see and acknowledge the pain many of our colleagues are going through. It will take commitment and persistence for Dow Jones to change for the better. But we will do it, and we will do it together.

Almar