As the Black Lives Matter movement continues to sweep the nation, local newspaper, the Daily Reading (a clever play on both the verb ‘read’ and the Massachusetts town it’s from), has begun the process of evaluating its standards of employee diversity. The DR reports on the town and the happenings in the greater Boston area.
After posting an image to show support for the BLM movement on Facebook, residents were quick to call out that the paper had an all white staff. “HYPOCRITES!” said Facebook user Enrico Cortés. After several hours of silence and 20 more hate comments on the Facebook thread, the chief editor of the DR, Connor Carlson, finally addressed the issue.
In a statement to DR subscribers Carlson said:
We at the Daily Reading have always been on the side of justice. It has come to our attention that the community has not seen the diversity of our staff. These different viewpoints bring lots of value to the table. We are at our strongest when all of us matter.
Our newsroom has a lot of intellectual diversity. One of our writers, Jim, is from the South, and Connie went to college in California. And rest assured readers, we do have plenty of people of color in our workplace and staff. Actually, our whole mailroom and distribution room are all hourly workers that are people of color! Sure, they are in the basement of our building, and we only see them when we randomly get snail mail or need help carrying that new chair we just bought up the stairs, but just knowing that those people are down there makes our company that much more diverse and inclusive. We thank you all for the concern and hope this statement has shed light on the situation!
HornRimmer 