Diversity Comment Follow-Up

Last week, an anonymous poster commented: "To say you're more amenable to change than past boards is ridiculous. I applaud your efforts to try something new, but the campus coverage in the paper is worse this year than it was under any of the last three news editors. Holding a forum is one thing, actually creating good, representative content is another."

I have been holding off on responding until today in order to put in the plug for today's Town Hall (8 p.m. in Earl Hall Auditorium--come vent to us. We'll listen. Plus, free pizza!). Also, I've been trying to think through how to respond without coming off as either defensive or chest-thumping. Here's what I came up with.

I think the argument that there may be a gap between our efforts and the success that comes from them is a legitimate one. Whether this year's coverage is better or worse than previous years' is not something I can objectively judge, but we know that we haven't fixed all of the problem.

What I do know is that, in my time here, I have never heard more talk about about the level of diversity at Spectator as I hear now. I can tell you that the awareness and recognition within the office that there is a problem here has never been higher in my 30-odd months at the paper.

Further, I know some of the steps that have been taken internally to address the problem. I know that we have appointed a deputy news editor and a contributing editor devoted to looking at diversity issues among the staff and within our pages. I sit in a meeting every week with other top-level editors and we talk about what we can do for the paper. We are bringing in speakers, planning a media training, and are talking about how to recruit a more-diverse staff.

But these are all first steps in tackling a big big problem, and that's what tonight is about. We have some ideas about what to do to address the concerns on continue forward, but we don't know how best to move forward, and we don't even know where all of our problems are.

And so I urge you to come tonight and tell us what you think. I have said this before and I'll say it again--representation is active. We can't fix the problem that we don't know about, so tell us where are problems are and together we'll work to improve the paper and make it a better asset for Columbia.