Worcester Business Journal

wbjournal.com | September 13, 2021 | Worcester Business Journal 17 D I V E R S I T Y & I N C L U S I O N F O C U S starts wi an idea. EVERY BUSINESS A N D S O M E O N E E L S E W H O B E L I E V E D I N I T. M E M B E R F D I C | M E M B E R D I F 2 7 8 P A R K A V E | 3 1 5 M A I N S T W O R C E S T E R P U B L I C M A R K E T I N T E R A C T I V E A T M countrybank.com/business starts wi an idea. EVERY BUSINESS A N D S O M E O N E E L S E W H O B E L I E V E D I N I T. M E M B E R F D I C | M E M B E R D I F 2 7 8 P A R K A V E | 3 1 5 M A I N S T W O R C E S T E R P U B L I C M A R K E T I N T E R A C T I V E A T M countrybank.com/business starts wi an idea. EVERY BUSINESS A N D S O M E O N E E L S E W H O B E L I E V E D I N I T. M E M B E R F D I C | M E M B E R D I F 2 7 8 P A R K A V E | 3 1 5 M A I N S T W O R C E S T E R P U B L I C M A R K E T I N T E R A C T I V E A T M countrybank.com/business starts wi an idea. EVERY BUSINESS A N D S O M E O N E E L S E W H O B E L I E V E D I N I T. initiative from its parent company, Gannett Co. of Virginia, during which editors across its network shared newsroom diversity figures and pledged to do better, including a promise to reach gender, racial, and ethnic staff parity by 2025. at data, and that promise, was updated on Sept. 1 of this year. Nordman declined to be interviewed for this piece, pointing instead to that update. Per the update, the T&G's newsroom is 86.2% white, and newsroom managers are 100% white. Overall that's 0.3 percentage points lower than a year prior for newsroom staff overall. At the same time, the newsroom decreased from 8.1% Black employees to 0%, and rose from 0% to 10.3% Asian employees, year-to-year. e community the paper covers is 5.8% Black and 4.3% Asian, per the T&G data report. e paper also saw an increase from 0% to 3.4% Hispanic/Latino employees in its newsroom. e community the T&G covers is 17.1% within that demographic. At the same time, the paper reported its newsroom is 72.4% male in 2021, up from last year when that figure was 67.6%. News managers were 66.7% Telegram & Gazette, in Worcester Dave Nordman*, executive editor White male Spectrum News 1, in Worcester Andy Lacombe, news director White male MassLive, in Worcester** Ed Kubosiak, vice president of content White male Worcester Business Journal Brad Kane, editor White male Sentinel & Enterprise, in Fitchburg Bruce Castleberry, senior editor White male Talk of the Commonwealth, in Worcester Hank Stolz, host White male MetroWest Daily News, in Marlborough Dave Nordman*, executive editor White male Central Mass. newsroom leaders News outlet Lead editor & title Gender & race *Dave Nordman is also the newsroom leader for the Gardner News and Milford Daily News, which are publications of the Gannett Co. in Virginia. **MassLive is based in Springfield with a news bureau in Worcester. Sources: Individual websites and LinkedIn profiles male, a decrease from the year prior, when that figure was 83.3%. ese figures were accurate as of July 13. How stories are told Diversity in the newsroom, given the outward-facing nature of journalism, is about more than staffing. It concerns what stories are told and how they are presented, including who is used for sources. From elected officials to business leaders, community members and more, journalists pull on a wide variety of people's perspectives to help them do their job. Nordman, for his part at the T&G, said in his Sept. 1 op-ed the paper has changed the way it reports on crime. "We produce more enterprise and solution-based stories instead of just feeding traditional racial stereotypes," Nordman wrote. "We report criminal backgrounds only when clear relevance is established, and we no longer use race in descriptions of suspects." Crime stories are a diversity-in- journalism issue because in many newspapers, including in Central Massachusetts and far beyond, they have oen provided knee-jerk fodder for coded racist language in both headlines and reporting, as well as a penchant for relying on just one side – usually law enforcement – to tell the story of what happened from arrest to arrest. ere's been a push away from that kind of reporting, recognizing police reports only tell one piece Continued on page 18

• Cover