Friedersdorf joins the debate:
There is a case to be made for diversity in newsrooms, and if you’re running an all white newspaper in a multicultural town, you’re probably doing something wrong. But no one is helped by peddling diversity mantras that betray an utter failure to grapple with a difficult issue. Furthermore, should the Washington Post newsroom grow more diverse in future years and I hope that it does let me be the first to assert that the minority staffers should be covering Congress, Bethesda, and the University Club as often as sitting on the Metro desk or reporting on Southwest DC.
Mr. Alexander would probably say he’d never suggest otherwise, but when you approvingly quote someone saying, “If you have a community of basketball players, it’s difficult for a newsroom of opera lovers to cover them,” it’s fair enough to wonder if you’re also saying the opposite. Of course, this whole exercise presumes that basketball and opera themselves are inherently racial rather than cultural phenomena, which is also wrong.
In related news, Politico was recently scolded for its lack of non-white men in an editorial meeting.