WSJ reporters demand action on diversity

WSJ 2017 Wall Street Journal female reporters have emailed editor Gerard Baker and deputy Matt Murray, expressing their growing frustration that the leadership hasn’t meaningfully addressed the significant pay gap between men and women, and the lack of racial diversity, reports Emily Peck of The Huffington Post.

Peck reports, “The June email landed in Baker’s inbox just days before the Journal reporters’ union issued a detailed report on pay at the paper. The report concluded that women in the union make less than men across the board, even accounting for experience, location and job title. Female reporters earn an average of 91 cents for every dollar their male counterparts make. The disparity widens when you consider all the women in the union ― including non-managerial staff in sales, tech and other areas. They make 87 percent of what men earn.

“The timing of the email was coincidental, the Journal insiders told HuffPost, but the report has created a greater sense of urgency inside the newsroom. (Full disclosure: This reporter was an editor at the Journal from 2006-2011.)

“The note (which you can read in full below) comes just a few months after the departure of the paper’s highest-ranking female editorial leader: Rebecca Blumenstein, who left to take a leadership position at The New York Times. That was a blow to the newsroom and particularly to women who viewed her as a champion and role model, Journal staffers told HuffPost.

“The Journal reporters who spoke to HuffPost asked that their names not be published due to concern for how their superiors would consider their views.”

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.