It’s time for action.

September 9, 2020

In the 50 years since its founding, NPR has failed to fully reflect the public it serves.

NPR employees strive to “create a more informed public” and meet the “highest standards of public service in journalism and cultural expression,” according to our mission statement. But over its long history, the persistent and overwhelming whiteness of NPR’s staff and management has prevented our organization from achieving that mission.

As far back as 1978, a task force found the public broadcast system was “asleep at the transmitter” when it came to serving the needs of Black, Asian, Latino and Native American listeners. And as recently as 2019, when our current CEO John Lansing took his post, he expressed surprise at how white NPR’s upper management was.

The workforce at NPR that creates our high-quality programming and news coverage is represented by the SAG-AFTRA union. NPR has been unionized for four decades. That means that we, the union, have been part of the problem. While the union has helped individual members with concerns about discrimination, it has not been sufficiently vocal or public in its support of Black, brown, Indigenous and Asian employees. A small number of NPR employees — mainly people of color — have been fighting to diversify our newsroom, our audience and our content for years. The SAG-AFTRA unit at NPR has largely failed to work by their side as an ally in this effort.

Today, NPR’s SAG-AFTRA union is pledging to use our collective power to support people of color within our union and across NPR — both by changing our own practices and by presenting management with this list of demands related to racial and ethnic diversity, equity and inclusion in our organization. Our demands are concrete and measurable. Many of them echo calls for change that have been issued in the past. And all of them are sorely needed to make good on the promises of decades’ worth of NPR leaders.

We recognize the current economic crisis facing NPR, the media industry and the country at large could limit some immediate action, especially when it comes to hiring. But these demands include a range of actions that can be taken at little to no cost. These actions will set NPR up to successfully implement larger structural change when the company’s economic situation improves.

Since his hiring, CEO John Lansing has maintained that diversity is his top priority. We appreciate this. NPR employees, however, have repeatedly heard leaders make similar promises while failing to act. Increasing the racial and ethnic diversity of the organization has long been a formal goal at NPR, yet we find little evidence of any substantial progress. From 2015 to 2019, the share of newsroom employees who self-identify as Hispanic or Latino rose by just 3.5 percentage points. The percentage still needs to more than double to come close to reflecting the Latino population in the U.S. The share of Black employees in the newsroom increased by less than 1 percentage point. And the shares of Asian and Native American employees have held essentially flat in recent years.

In NPR’s newsroom/union positions, our racial and ethnic diversity is concentrated within our lower ranks, as lower-paid producers and news assistants support our much whiter and more prestigious cohort of reporters and editors. Several of NPR’s key news desks are, on a percentage basis, more white than the newsroom itself. And for years, NPR has favored cheaper labor by relying on scores of temporary employees — often younger, often people of color — to produce its journalism.

The objectives and demands listed here are intentionally focused on racial and ethnic equity in our workplace. This document, however, does not list every priority for workplace equity. This focused initiative should not limit similar efforts to address disparities of gender, sexual orientation or age discrimination, or harassment of any kind. Members of NPR’s SAG-AFTRA union are committed to improving equity and inclusion across NPR’s workforce.

It is vital that NPR take meaningful steps to embrace change, not just for the sake of our own organization, but for our colleagues throughout the public radio system. The culture at NPR sets an example for the culture of hundreds of member stations nationwide, many of which represent the last stronghold of local news programming in their communities. The failures of NPR are echoed throughout public media, and NPR must serve as a model for fixing those failures.

It’s time for action.

Transformation is both a moral and an existential imperative: The future of NPR is at stake. The company must change if it hopes to finally live up to its mission statement and finally reflect the public it serves.

Signed,

NPR SAG-AFTRA Shop Stewards and Ad Hoc Committee on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Our demands:

EXECUTIVE ACCOUNTABILITY: NPR managers and executives should be held accountable for failing to make measurable progress toward diversity. As a starting point, executive bonuses, currently on hold because of economic conditions, should not be reinstated unless employee representation of people of color is at least 35% within every individual division. This target is achievable, as NPR’s current staff is 34.4% nonwhite. It is also significant, as the News and Information division, for instance, is only 30% people of color. And it would represent meaningful progress toward reflecting the U.S., which is nearly 40% Black, Indigenous and people of color.

PLAN FOR REPORTER/EDITOR DIVERSITY: Within our newsroom, NPR’s diversity is concentrated within lower-paid producers, news assistants and fixers. NPR must build a reporter/correspondent corps that reflects the diversity of the nation we cover. To understand the enormity of the problem and the extent of action needed to redress it, the current roster of roughly 100 reporters/correspondents would require, at a minimum, another 11 Black reporters, 19 Latino reporters and 2 Native American reporters to meet that standard. And while NPR has made some progress in diversifying editorial staff in the past several years (reducing the percentage of white editors from 81.5% to 74%), there is much more to be done. NPR must publish a pledge and a plan to bring the corps of reporters/correspondents/hosts and editing staff, specifically, up to parity with the nation’s demographics, whether through new hires or promotions and reassignments.

SUPERVISOR ACCOUNTABILITY: Supervisors at all levels should have their job descriptions rewritten to explicitly require them to meet HR best practices for hiring processes and to support people from marginalized backgrounds on their teams. Their annual reviews must assess their success on these fronts, with corrective actions taken if they are falling short of their job duties

HIRING POOLS AND PANELS: At least 50% of all finalist pools for open positions should come from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups, and hiring managers should be prohibited from moving forward if this is not the case. As NPR has recognized, all hiring panels must be diverse. HR should track finalist pools and hiring panel makeup, publish the overall results and hold individual hiring managers accountable when they fall short.

EXIT INTERVIEWS: Management must commit to offering confidential exit interviews to every employee who leaves NPR. NPR must commit to analyzing information gathered from the exit interview process for issues related to diversity, equity and inclusion and providing at least a biannual, aggregated summary of relevant suggestions, trends and issues to union representatives.

CAREER DEVELOPMENT: NPR must develop credible and meaningful career development opportunities within the News and Programming divisions to correct its long-running failure to invest in the careers of its producers and junior employees. NPR must:

1. create more reporting/editing development opportunities for off-air and junior employees by reinstating programs like enrichment rotations and reporter and editor internal fellowships, and creating other opportunities that allow junior producers to get experience that better equips them to later pursue reporting positions or otherwise advance within the organization. There should be at least three or four of these opportunities each year, with options available to the entire News and Programming divisions, including music and research staff. Staff should not have to take pay cuts to accept these opportunities, which must be a tool for expanding opportunities and creating career growth, not pushing people to work for less pay.

2. provide management training for all new managers, including those in acting roles. Too often NPR has put Black and brown people into acting/temporary management positions without training or support, a “glass cliff” practice that sets them up to fail.

3. analyze patterns of pay and promotions at NPR to ensure not only equal pay for equal work, but equal access to opportunities for career advancement.

TEMP ANALYSIS: NPR must commit to an analysis of its use of temporary employees, including: demographic data on current temporary employees; data on the rate of temporary employees leaving the organization; and whether racial disparities exist in the conversion of temporary employees to permanent employees. NPR must release this data as part of its annual release of newsroom diversity data through the public editor and on NPR.org.

SOURCE TRACKING: NPR employees have already demonstrated that by tracking the demographics of their interviewees and sources, they are better able to ensure that all of America is reflected on our shows and in our reporting. Source tracking is a powerful tool that has been endorsed by NPR management. But the reality is that the implementation of this across the newsroom is scattershot, and reporters and producers have not been given the tools they need to do this effectively. To show that NPR is prioritizing source tracking as a way to immediately improve efforts to make sure NPR looks and sounds like the U.S., NPR must:

• demand that every team immediately start tracking sources — no exceptions.

• immediately provide each team with:
  1. a standardized set of guidelines to allow for the collection of uniform data. These guidelines should include a standard methodology and set of categories for collecting data on race/ethnicity, gender identity, geography, as well as other demographic topics that teams have requested.
  2. a standardized set of questions and prompts for collecting data from sources, as well as legal guidance on best practices.
  3. staffing resources to analyze the data collected.

• immediately share those guidelines with member station staff, and provide them with access to the company-wide source tracking form or tool, once developed, to allow for similar efforts across the public radio network.

• give all individuals (e.g. reporters, editors, producers and bookers) ongoing access to real-time analytics on their own source tracking in addition to quarterly reports on source diversity Without real-time analytics, much of the power of source tracking is gone.

TRANSLATIONS/INTERPRETATION: NPR must set aside a pool of funds that would ensure that all translations and interpretations of languages into English can be done professionally by contractors or another service provider. While NPR staffers with language skills can continue to volunteer to help with reporting that is not conducted in English, solely relying on the often unpaid labor of our colleagues is unfair and risks inaccuracies.

DIVERSITY, EQUITY AND INCLUSION FUNDING TRANSPARENCY: NPR must provide SAG-AFTRA with an accounting of how much funding has been allocated to support diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, as compared to other training and hiring programs.

EDITING, RESEARCH AND PRODUCING CREDITS: NPR must establish a mandatory company-wide policy for publicly crediting the work of editors, producers and RAD researchers. For example, an “editing by” credit on NPR.org to the person who did the most substantial editing work on a story not only shows accountability and transparency to our readers, but also fosters greater respect for the work of all of our colleagues. Since producers and news assistants at NPR are more likely to be people of color, this will expand recognition of their work while also supporting source-tracking efforts that acknowledge and incorporate the work of non-reporters.

STYLE GUIDE AND CORRECTIONS: NPR must commit to a comprehensive, transparent and ongoing review of our style guide and corrections process to assess NPR’s policies on race/ethnicity, gender identity and other topics related to marginalized groups, and ensure the entire newsroom has access to clear and updated policies. Part of that process must include designating newsroom contacts with journalist affinity groups who offer style guidance in order to stay up to date with any changes. These groups include but are not limited to the Trans Journalists Association (TJA), National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA), National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ), National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) and Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA).

ACCOUNTABILITY COMMITTEE: NPR must create a committee, with members representing the unions as well as senior management, that will meet monthly to assess progress on these action items, and make additional recommendations on how to support a diverse newsroom -- including but not limited to issues of transparency and equity in recruitment, hiring, training, promotion, compensation, benefits, mentorship and advancement. The committee will make an annual report to NPR’s board of directors on how the company has progressed toward its stated goals.

—

In addition to making these demands of management, the SAG-AFTRA unit at NPR is committed to reforms within our own operations:

SURVEY OF MEMBERS: The union has surveyed the membership to understand their perceptions of the union and solicit feedback for how the union can best serve as an ally. The union will follow up with additional surveys as work progresses and present this document at a member meeting to foster discussion and the generation of new ideas for what the union can do.

ENGAGEMENT WITH EMPLOYEE RESOURCE GROUPS: The union fully supports NPR’s decision to establish employee resource groups and compensate their leaders for their time and efforts. The union will send a representative to meetings of the ERG council to listen and learn how the union can best support efforts toward mutual goals.

HOLDING MANAGEMENT TO ACCOUNT: Having delivered demands to NPR, the union will work to oversee progress toward those demands and will keep the membership informed, as well as independently present progress reports to NPR’s board of directors.

REPRESENTATION: The union will reconsider its steward election procedures to incorporate some means of ensuring that the elected stewards reflect the diversity of the newsroom.

CONTRACT LANGUAGE: The union will, at each contract negotiation, fight for new contract provisions to give diversity efforts more legal teeth.

UNION ACTIVITIES: The union shop stewards commit to fostering inclusivity in all of the union’s regular activities, such as membership meetings and weekly stewards’ meetings.

FOSTERING AN INCLUSIVE CULTURE: The SAG-AFTRA unit of NPR believes that combating systemic racism is our moral responsibility. We believe that work toward increased diversity, equity and inclusion -- including fighting against racism in the workplace -- is work that must be done by all union members. The union will continue to vigorously defend the rights of its members; however, those rights do not include the right to uphold racism or stymie efforts to build a more inclusive NPR.

Contact: wemakenpr@gmail.com