I support journalists of color and their allies at The Arizona Republic in their fight for concrete improvements in diversity, equity and inclusion. These changes would improve The Republic’s coverage of communities of color and marginalized communities, in addition to improving the newsroom that they all work so hard for.

Their letter is as follows:

Journalists of color and their allies at The Arizona Republic are standing in solidarity with journalists across the country who are re-examining their coverage and reallocating resources to prioritize equity, diversity and inclusion in their newsrooms.

The nation’s reckoning over systemic racism and institutional biases has revealed painful truths about inequities in our newsroom and the journalism industry that have historically driven journalists of color out and kept them in underpaid and entry-level jobs.

The glaring lack of Black, Latino and Indigenous editors in our newsroom has long hindered our coverage of marginalized communities. The protests that have unfolded since the killing of George Floyd and the communities of color that are disproportionately affected by COVID-19 have spotlighted the need for more journalists of color. We don’t have racial parity for journalists of color in opinions, upper management and other veteran roles to fairly cover our diverse communities with the insight they deserve.

Our newsroom’s Diversity Committee, made up of journalists of color and allies, has worked tirelessly for 16 years to achieve racial and gender parity and equity for our LGBTQ colleagues and journalists with disabilities, while seeking constructive criticism from diverse communities so our coverage more accurately reflects the communities we cover.

We are speaking up because we love our communities, our colleagues and our newsroom. We can’t do this work alone or without the support of leadership that truly listens, empowers journalists of color and embraces equity.

Our recent dialogue with managers and the hiring and promotion of Black journalists are good first steps. But there is more to be done. We’re ready to work with management for real change and real action that our communities and journalists deserve.

To reach our goals together, we’ve developed and respectfully submit our demands for progress:

1. PUBLICLY POST REGULARLY UPDATED DIVERSITY DATA FOR THE NEWSROOM

Our executive editor recently acknowledged there is still work to be done in achieving racial parity in our newsroom, especially in management positions. To measure our progress and ensure more transparency, Gannett and The Arizona Republic should release a diversity report, by department, for the company and the newsroom on an annual basis.

Leaders should provide an explanation of where the demographic data comes from and publicly post statistics for our reporting and editing teams in a commitment to diversity and transparency.

2. RELEASE A PAY-EQUITY STUDY OF OUR NEWSROOM

Pay is often one of the most tangible ways to identify inequities, disparities and bias.

Newspaper Guilds nationally, including at the Los Angeles Times and Washington Post, have publicly released the results of pay-equity studies that have shown significant salary disparities for women and people of color.

Using the last five years of salary and demographic data, issue an anonymized pay-equity report on the newsroom, comparing wages, race, gender, departments, education, years of experience, management/non-management positions and other relevant factors.

Make the full results public, and fix any pay disparities for journalists of color and women in the next year. Employees who request a review of their salary should be able to schedule one anytime with management to analyze their pay in relation to other employees of similar experience and the salary market rate.

3. PRIORITIZE COVERAGE OF DIVERSE COMMUNITIES

The company has recognized it needs to prioritize coverage of communities of color, while acknowledging the framing and selection of stories is often designed with a white audience in mind. We’ve produced some strong stories about communities of color and marginalized communities, including in-depth coverage of Indigenous communities, but we must do more.

Within the year, form community advisory and focus groups composed of diverse readers to regularly inform our coverage. Launch a separate, independent content analysis by journalism researchers to identify coverage gaps.

If The Republic is to survive, we must be armed with knowledge of blind spots, tell authentic stories about diverse communities and foster coverage that fairly and accurately covers our communities of color and historically marginalized people.

Immediately reinstate the diversity and disparities beat that our diverse communities and our Diversity Committee called for creating to address gaps in coverage. Include coverage of race, racism, systemic inequities/bias.

Hire or seek volunteers from each team in the newsroom to build a group of reporters around these issues as we’re seeing at news organizations nationwide.

4. TREAT LA VOZ EQUITABLY

Launch a study to identify revenue opportunities for La Voz to increase its reach and burnish its brand among Arizona’s vast Spanish-speaking population. Within six months, hire a Spanish-speaking editor-in-chief to work with La Voz’s Spanish-speaking staff.

5. EXPAND RECRUITMENT EFFORTS FOR DIVERSE JOURNALISTS

Explain where the company recruits for open positions and its budget to recruit for these positions. Ensure recruitment for every open position includes outreach to historically Black colleges, community colleges and universities; to the National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ), National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ), Native American Journalists Association (NAJA), Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA), National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA), Trans Journalists Association, Journalism and Women Symposium (JAWS), and other diverse student journalism organizations; and cultural clubs at Arizona State University, University of Arizona, Northern Arizona University and Maricopa County Community Colleges.

Hire someone externally or appoint someone internally to oversee this outreach full-time, or work with the Diversity Committee to facilitate this outreach and ensure they are compensated for these efforts.

To achieve our racial parity goals, all interns and Pulliam fellows will reflect Maricopa County’s demographics. Hire journalists from community colleges as well as state universities.

We know that many of our hires come from our internships. This is an opportunity to make significant progress while showing our commitment to racial parity in areas where we can show immediate accountability.

6. ENSURE DIVERSE CANDIDATES ARE INTERVIEWED FOR EVERY OPEN POSITION

Interview at least two applicants from traditionally underrepresented groups (including women, people of color, LGBTQ+ and people with disabilities) for every position that is filled. The Rooney Rule and Mansfield Rule are adopted by industries committed to parity and inclusion.

Provide regular reports on efforts to recruit diverse candidates, including the number of diverse candidates that have applied for and been interviewed for each open position, and invite a member of the Diversity Committee to participate in interviews prior to hiring.

7. PRIORITIZE PARITY IN PROMOTIONS

In June, the Arizona chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists released a statement on the lack of Black representation in leadership positions at newsrooms across the state, including at The Arizona Republic. The Republic management’s response lacked a parity plan with deadlines.

While there has been limited progress in middle management for journalists of color, the only Latino director and only Black director at The Republic in at least the past decade no longer work in the newsroom.

Provide a copy of complete policies and procedures surrounding diverse recruitment, hiring, promotion and retention.

Within the next five years, achieve racial parity in each of the following work sections: editors, upper-level managers, the editorial board and all other staff, so that these departments reflect the ethnic and racial demographics in Maricopa County.

Prioritize parity in promotions of journalists of color currently in the newsroom, and ensure that these hires and promotions won’t be tokenized by committing to hiring and promoting diverse candidates to our opinions, investigative, legislative, national politics and other veteran and high-level teams that have historically lacked journalists of color.

8. CREATE DIVERSITY FELLOWSHIPS, EDITING AND TRAINING PROGRAMS TO BOLSTER RETENTION AND ADVANCEMENT OF DIVERSE JOURNALISTS

Within the next three months, create at least five fellowships for current employees to spend six months working with any team in our or another Gannett newsroom that aligns with their training and career goals.

Renew this program every six months with new volunteer enrollees. Within three months, create an editing and training program open to any journalist with at least three years experience. Recruit applicants of color for these programs to help ensure we’re achieving our racial-parity goals.

As part of employee reviews for managers, evaluate their performance on efforts to produce diverse, inclusive coverage and to promote, recruit and retain journalists of color and journalists from historically marginalized communities.

Within the next two months, the executive editor and editors will meet with journalists of color and any other interested journalists to hear and document their career goals/job and build a plan to help them attain those jobs and goals, if not in our newsroom, then in one of Gannett’s more than 200 newsrooms nationwide.

9. OUTLINE RULES FOR SOCIAL MEDIA POLICIES; FAIRLY ENFORCE THEM

We repeatedly hear from women and journalists of color that they are disproportionately disciplined under corporate social media policies. We want to ensure that journalists are not unfairly disciplined for their social media posts about diversity, race, racism, inclusion, equity, inclusion and other topics.

Provide written clarification on what the company’s expectations are for journalists’ social media and how those policies are enforced.

10. ENSURE SAFETY FOR JOURNALISTS AND INTERNS DURING PROTEST, PANDEMIC COVERAGE

Create and share written policies and guidelines that make it clear to our journalists how they will be supported in the event they are arrested or injured covering protests. This includes safety training for journalists and safety plans for covering protests and other emergencies.

We know that journalists have been injured at protests and arrested by police, and nationally we’ve seen journalists of color targeted disproportionately compared with their white colleagues. The company will pay for any legal or medical issues that occur while journalists, including interns and Pulliam fellows, are working covering protests.

The company will also consider and discuss its responsibility to protect interns, a diverse group who are often our lowest paid workers, as they cover the pandemic.

11. IMPLEMENT NEWSROOM-WIDE DIVERSITY, CULTURAL AWARENESS TRAINING

Provide annual training for all journalists by bringing in experts from diverse journalism organizations like NAHJ, NAJA, NABJ, AAJA, NCDJ and NLGJA, in addition to other journalism equity and inclusion experts.

These trainings foster greater understanding of our colleagues and the diverse communities we cover. They educate journalists about systemic racism, inequities and implicit biases, so this work doesn’t unfairly fall on journalists of color.

12. COMPENSATE THE DIVERSITY COMMITTEE FOR ITS WORK

Newsroom management has recently committed resources to advance the committee’s diversity and inclusion efforts. We would like to see equitable compensation for this work, often led by journalists of color, included in the annual budget.

Alternatively, provide committee members additional paid volunteer hours to be used for committee business or commit to sending committee members to conferences, trainings or other relevant workshops that can better equip them for work related to diversity and inclusion.

13. PUBLICLY RESTATE OUR COMMITMENT TO EQUITY

To move forward together for the good of our journalists of color and communities of color, it is important to acknowledge our past mistakes, listen to those we’ve harmed, apologize and make amends.

We believe a column addressing our state’s and nation’s struggles with racism and our newsroom’s commitment to achieving equity in staffing and coverage would send a powerful, healing message to our community.