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Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot says she is just providing one-on-one interviews to journalists of coloration to mark her two yr anniversary in workplace. However she mentioned she is doing so to make a press release about lack of variety within the metropolis’s newsrooms.
She mentioned in a letter to Chicago space media shops that she has been “struck by the overwhelming whiteness and maleness of Chicago media shops, editorial boards, the political press corps, and sure, the Metropolis Corridor press corps particularly,” and famous that she sees no ladies of coloration overlaying Metropolis Corridor.
Lightfoot challenged Chicago’s media group to rent extra folks of coloration, particularly ladies. “It’s too heavy a burden…to must tackle the labor of teaching white, principally male members of the information media in regards to the perils and complexities of implicit bias,” she wrote. “This isn’t my job. It shouldn’t be.”
Though Lightfoot mentioned it is a one-time factor to make clear an issue, she has additionally drawn criticism from folks in and across the media group, who say politicians mustn’t get to decide on who covers them.
“We’re speaking about somebody making an attempt to make clear historic inequities, and that’s a commendable purpose. Nonetheless, it’s a slippery slope to form of permit politicians to dictate protection in that means,” Charles Whitaker, Dean of Northwestern College’s Medill Faculty of Journalism told CBS Chicago.
Whereas not essentially backing Lightfoot’s choice, the Nationwide Affiliation of Black Journalists, whose longtime mission has been to advocate for newsroom variety, issued a press release saying it understands the message she was making an attempt to convey.
“I hope managers in newsrooms huge and small get the message. Political items should embody completely different views and life experiences with a purpose to transfer various tales to the forefront,” mentioned NABJ president Dorothy Tucker in a tweet.