THE CITY’s staff is united by a common mission: reporting hard-hitting stories that serve the people of New York.
We’ve assembled a full-time editorial and business team of 24 who bring a rich mix of work and life experiences, while hailing from a variety of backgrounds.
The graphics below, focused on race and gender, are drawn from voluntary surveys of our team, contributors, most recent interns and board of directors. All staff, contributors and board members participated.
The graphics, along with our initial diversity report released last year, help tell the story of where we started with the debut of THE CITY in April 2019 and where we are now.
What they don’t say is where we hope to go. Recent events in the city and around the country — from anti-police brutality and racism protests to corporate and personal reckonings on systemic discrimination — have spurred us to think long and hard about how we can be a bigger part of the solution.
Here are some action items we’re putting into place over the next year as we work toward better reflecting the city we cover:
Hiring
We’re recommitting to diversity across our newsroom, particularly at the senior and management levels, through promotion and hiring.
We’ll institute a uniform hiring system with all available positions posted publicly on our own site and as many other platforms as possible — including journalism groups organized around racial and ethnic affinity.
We’ll also establish a presence at journalism professional conferences.
Meanwhile, we’re contracting an outside firm to undertake a compensation study of our full-time team. We’re also going to add comprehensive human resources support for our staff.
The Next Generation
We’ll create a more inclusive internship recruitment/application process that includes reaching out to more schools, both at the undergraduate and graduate levels — especially HBCU, Hispanic and Native American journalism programs. We’ll work to develop a mentorship program aimed at young New Yorkers with a demonstrated interest in journalism.
Team Professional Development
We’ll sponsor outside mentorship and training for team members who may be looking to expand their professional development and leadership skills within our newsroom or elsewhere. We’ll explore programs that help women and people of color overcome societal and systemic barriers.
This effort will include sending staff to professional conferences for training and speaking opportunities, as well as to help with recruitment.
In addition, we’ll invite journalism professionals and academics of color to host skills training and professional development workshops for our team.
Reporting and Community
We’ll extend our commitment to reporting about and for the people of New York to making a more conscious and deliberate effort to include a greater diversity of sources in our stories — particularly at the “expert” level. We’ll explore a sourcing audit to track our progress on this front.
We recommit ourselves to the greatest extent possible to reporting in-person in the many, varied neighborhoods of our city. As we build out plans to run more public events, we’ll take an expansive approach aimed at making it clear to communities across the five boroughs what THE CITY is and what it stands for.
Strengthening Ties
We’ll establish and strengthen relationships with journalism professional groups, organized around racial or ethnic affinity and otherwise. Among the goals: to exchange advice and insight, share ideas and resources, and create strong connections going forward.