Does diversity fall by the wayside during a business crisis? The Washington Post points to ‘yes’

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- Top story. Everyone in journalism this week is talking about the Washington Post, where new CEO William Lewis announced a plan to split the newsroom into three divisions—one focused on reaching news consumers in new ways—with separate leaders rather than a sole editor-in-chief.

The problem? All of those leaders named so far were white men (former Wall Street Journal editor Matt Murray, the Telegraph's Robert Winnett, and current Post opinions editor David Shipley). And Sally Buzbee, the former editor of the Associated Press who took over the Post's newsroom three years ago, is out of the picture.

The news business is difficult, to say the least. At the Post, traffic is reportedly half of what it was a few years ago, during the peak of reader interest in the pandemic and the Trump administration. Lewis has said his reorganization is a matter of urgency, and he reportedly clashed with Buzbee over whether to implement it now or wait until after the November U.S. presidential election. “We are losing large amounts of money," he reportedly told staff, according to the Post's own reporting. "Your audience has halved in recent years. People are not reading your stuff. ... I can’t sugarcoat it anymore.”

For many, the reorganization seems to have struck a nerve. It certainly seems to be a prime example of a trend we've seen across the business world: that when times get tough, diversity can fall by the wayside as a priority. See: the rolling exits of corporate America's chief diversity officers. That interpretation came up during the Post's internal meetings, according to the paper's reporting. “The most cynical interpretation sort of feels like you chose two of your buddies to come in and help run the Post,” one staffer said to the CEO. “And we now have four white men running three newsrooms.” In response, the Post reported, Lewis "reaffirmed his commitment to diversity while acknowledging that 'I’ve got to do better, and you’ll see that going forward.'"

While there's a strong argument for the value of diversity across all industries, in media the correlation between diversity and success is even clearer. Without a diverse set of voices around the table and in leadership roles, newsrooms miss big stories. Editors set the agenda for what gets covered, and when every top editor is a white man, stories like sexual assault or police violence can go under-covered for decades. That's one reason Melinda French Gates just gave a multi-million-dollar grant to news organziation The 19th*, which covers the news through a gender lens, as part of her $1 billion commitment to women's rights.

Buzbee's exit, too, struck a nerve. Post staffers questioned her treatment, the paper reported. She had been the first woman to lead the newsroom in its 147-year history. According to the New York Times, the job Lewis offered her was one she considered a demotion—to run the new newsroom focused on social media and service journalism, not the one covering business and politics and not comparable to her job overseeing all of it. And the question of diversity can only go so far; as is usually the case, the on-the-ground story is more complex. The New York Times reported last night that Buzbee and Lewis had clashed as well over her decision to publish a story that referenced his involvement in a U.K. journalism phone-hacking case (which he has previously denied). In the Times story, Buzbee and a Post spokeswoman both declined to comment.

Having a woman in the top job isn't a panacea for any issue. Look at the Wall Street Journal, which has been rocked by its own drama this week; editor-in-chief Emma Tucker continued her months-long restructuring, which included additional layoffs despite the organization's relatively solid financial footing. Staffers protested by placing sticky notes with messages on her office door. At NPR, Katherine Maher began her tenure as CEO responding to allegations of bias after departing editor Uri Berliner wrote an essay in which he said the publicly-funded news organization had a left-leaning bias; conservatives latched onto the claim and combed through Maher's old social media posts, in which she had expressed support for progressive causes. Were Buzbee to have stayed in a new version of her job amid the Post's restructuring plan, she might've been subject to similar pushback.

So is this the end of DEI in media? That's probably a bridge too far. But it is a sign, if we needed another, that the news business, despite its lofty goals, is subject to the same pressures and short-term thinking as the rest of the business world.

Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com

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