Field Notes from The Frontlines Webinar
Over 500 people joined us for Field Notes from The Frontlines: The Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Movement In Public Media. This was a robust conversation with Sylvia Komatsu, Chief Content Officer of KERA, Nico Leone, President and CEO of KERA, Denita Powell Malvern, Director of Engagement and Inclusion for KERA, Tom Godell, General Manager of WUKY, and Whitney Maddox, NPR’s first Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion Manager. They shared the steps they've taken to improve diversity, equity and inclusion in public media.
Transcript of the webinar courtesy of Kelsey Page, who kindly volunteered her time and expertise to make this resource more accessible.
0:00
Aishah Rashied Hyman:
Welcome, everyone. Welcome to Public Media For All’s Field Notes From The Frontlines. Hi, I’m Aishah Rashied Hyman, I’m the Vice President of Business Development and Planning for Public Broadcasting Atlanta, and I’ll be your moderator today.
Today marks Public Media For All’s second national webinar to address the need for diversity, equity, and inclusion in all aspects of public media. We have people from across the nation, stations and organizations of all sizes joining in this moment and this movement. In fact, for today’s webinar, we had nearly 800 individuals sign up from all kinds of organizations, stations, all across the country.
Today specifically, we’re going to hear from leaders in our industry who are working to address diversity, equity, and inclusion at their stations and in their organizations. We’re also going to hear stories submitted anonymously from folks who work in the public media industry. These stories speak to the shift that’s happening in our industry’s culture to one that we hope will value and truly embrace the experiences and voices of Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian, and immigrant people in our nation. We want you to know that these stories were submitted anonymously to our website, to Public Media For All’s website. They do not reflect stories or experiences from folks who necessarily work for NPR or KERA or WUKY or any of the organizations represented by the presenters today. These are anonymous stories submitted from folks across the country.
Before we get started we do want to say some thank yous and also take care of some housekeeping. First, we want to thank our sponsors and partners: the National Federation of Community Broadcasters, Public Media Women in Leadership, Public Media Journalists Association, Public Radio Association of Development Officers (PRADO), Public Radio Programming Directors Association, thank you so very much for being our sponsoring partners. And we also want to give a special thank you to LKA Fundraising and Communications for being our promotional sponsor for this particular webinar, and the wonderful support of Carl Bloom Associates -- Jody, Christina, Rob, we could not have done this without you. Thank you so much for your technical support and providing the technology for us to host the event today. I’ve got to give a special shoutout to Carl Bloom, I’ve been working with them for 15 years and just so grateful to have their support.
We also want you to know about the inaugural cohort. We have 21 stations and 7 organizations participating in Public Media For All, and we are so excited about that. In addition to that, 1300 individuals have signed up to participate in Public Media For All. This speaks to the level of interest across our system in issues around diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Let’s get started. We are really delighted to have a wonderful group of presenters today. We have Whitney Maddox, the inaugural Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Manager from NPR. We’ll also hear from Tom Godell, General Manager at WUKY, and then the team from KERA -- we’ve got Nico Leone, President and CEO from KERA, Sylvia Komatsu, Chief Content and Diversity Officer at KERA, and Denita Malvern, Director of Engagement and Inclusion at KERA / KXT.
As I mentioned before, we are going to have stories from individuals who are working in the public media system. This is important because, you know, we spend a lot of time reading and learning about and talking about statistics, but sometimes when you’re only focused on the numbers and the statistics, you lose sight of the fact that these are real people, real human beings who are having these experiences at stations and organizations within the public media world. So we want to give voice to those stories.
Unidentified voice:
In a planning meeting, the white radio director told several Black staff to use jungle sounds if they wanted to use a music bed for on-air spots. The Black staff expressed how offended they were. None of the other white staff in the room helped to defend them or tell the radio director that he was wrong or out of line.
Aishah Rashied Hyman:
Again, that was a story submitted to Public Media For All anonymously by someone working in the public media system.
Now, we’re going to hear from Whitney Maddox from NPR. Whitney’s going to tell us about the work that’s been happening at National Public Radio.
5:28
Whitney Maddox:
Yeah, thank you so much, thank you for having me. Hello everyone. Again, I’m Whitney Maddox, I’m NPR’s first Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Manager. I am two months into the job, so that’s context that’s important. I am definitely learning as much as I can as I go. I am not joined by our Chief Diversity Officer, Keith Woods, because he is living his best life on vacation. Self care is critical in DEI work, so, letting him have his week.
I want to go through a few things we are doing at NPR. While there’s a lot, I’ll focus on a few things today. The first thing is, our Strategic Plan for the next three years centers what we have named “Diversifying our audience to reflect, serve, and inspire America.” So really ensuring that our content looks and sounds like America as well. So something that we have been doing, and our Audience Insights department has done a great job on, is having focus groups with Black and Latinx potential audience members, right -- they are not our audience members right now -- and asking them their opinion over 9 weeks about our content, so really exposing them to our content. And we got some honest feedback about our content and why they have not subscribed, or have, or listened in. So we are taking that feedback and we’re really rolling it out strategically across NPR to say, what does this mean about the content we need to put out? What does this mean about the content we need to create? Because currently it’s not serving those two populations.
We have our Latino -- what they have coined -- Oye Working Group to really go deeper, and those who want to come together across NPR to talk about, again, the content, what matters to that population, the Latinx population in particular. So, amazing ideas coming out of that working group. Again, back to a point that, hopefully a trend you will hear throughout today is really giving the people within our stations and our organizations the power to make the change, and the power to have their voices a part of the change. So that is what we are centering with those tours.
The next thing I’ll just flow through and talk about is the content side. So, two things that we're doing that we're really seeing great results from is, one, the Content Diversity Advisory Council. So that is a monthly time where, everyone from our VP of News all the way down, we come together and we talk about our content. We critique it from a DEI perspective. And so, podcasts and shows and online, the stories, we have people submit content, or for instance I can choose something, and we look at it. Like, what are we missing? Whose voice did we not include in this story? Why did we not? So that we’re not just putting out content and never pausing to look at, how can we do better, and critiquing ourselves. Oftentimes what we hear is that the go, go, go of the newsroom prevents us from doing that. Well, we’ve made a time once a month so we can do that, and change along the way.
Another thing is our source diversity. So we have put a lot of energy and effort into ensuring that the sources that we use at NPR are diverse. One of the things we are doing is -- in addition to having an amazing intern who, her job has been finding these diverse sources for us and making sure our news team knows about it, putting it on our website -- we have a new platform that’s going to come out really, really soon called Dex, it’s short for Rolodex, where we will house all of our sources, and you will be able to look up demographic information, if that’s what you’re looking for, in a scientist or what have you. You’ll be able to have that diverse source at your fingertips. So that is something that I’ve been a part of, coming in, even in the short two months, that is definitely exciting to see. So we can actually use data -- so, you know, that’s huge -- so we’re not just saying we’re using diverse sources but we’re actually able to run reports to see, are we lacking in gender? Are we lacking in physical location? Right, is everybody we’re using from the District of Columbia? What about people from the south? So those are some things we’re trying to be intentional about doing.
We also have amazing work coming out of our ERGs -- our Employee Resource Groups -- they’re bringing in people like Eddie Glaude this month, and other speakers to really talk and speak to why DEI is important, and how can we at NPR be more intentional. So he in particular is meeting with our leadership team, that’s our CEO / Vice President team, to give insight to them on how they need to lead and show up in this work, in this moment.
And what has been exciting for me is, in my short two months, I have been able to focus on women of color within NPR specifically. So I hosted listening sessions with them over a week and got amazing turnout. We had 95 women of color show up and speak their truth, and I was able to turn that into a learning document that was several, several pages and shared that with those women of color, shared that with our leadership team, with the intent to create change and be intentional because again, we’re centering their voices and their needs. So that has been something that has been-- taken over NPR in the last three weeks, all the way to us having public conversations in our all-staff, talking about the needs of women of color from their own mouths. So, trying to do new, innovative things at NPR around women of color.
And the last thing I’ll just touch on is that I’m hosting something called STAR, which stands for Start Talking About Race. So these are monthly dialogues, they are not trainings, they are monthly dialogues that I host around topics of race, racism, white supremacy, on forth, where anyone in our company can come together and be in dialogue with one another.
11:34
Aishah Rashied Hyman:
Well thank you Whitney. I actually have just two questions, a two part question for you.
Whitney Maddox:
Totally.
Aishah Rashied Hyman:
So, well first, I just want to thank you for your remarks. thank you so much --
Whitney Maddox:
Yes!
Aishah Rashied Hyman:
-- for being here and doing this with us and for taking the time to do this. Also just want to remind everyone who are participating that we’d love to have you share your questions in the Q&A box. so if you go to the bottom of your screen there’s a button where you can press the Q&A, click on the Q&A button and post your questions there, and we’re also monitoring the chat.
So recently with the shootings here in Atlanta, I think one of the things that became more clear to a lot of us who work in media is that, even though we might be doing DEI work here at our stations or in the organizations we work within, there are communities that oftentimes feel overlooked by our stations. And we had to just kind of have conversations inside of the station I work in about, were we doing enough outreach to the Asian and Pacific Islander community here in Atlanta? So I’m so glad that you made that point about, yes, even though newsrooms have to move quickly, that we do need to check ourselves and be self-aware and critical of the work we’re doing. because we do have times where we completely miss a population, a community, or even an angle of a story.
Whitney Maddox:
Exactly.
Aishah Rashied Hyman:
So thank you for pointing that out. I wanted to ask you, what for NPR is kind of the hardest-- the biggest hurdle or the hardest part of the DEI work that you’re doing, and what advice would you have for organizations or stations that are facing hurdles or maybe some impediment to getting started or moving forward with their DEI work?
Whitney Maddox:
Yes. What I want to acknowledge-- I feel like if Keith, our Chief Diversity Officer, were here, his answer may be totally different than mine. So I just want to acknowledge that.
I would say, in my short time there, just, in focusing on the women of color in particular at NPR, while I think many, many, many people-- and I know many, many, many people say, this is needed, we need to do this, we need to focus our energy and attention here, I think the hurdle has been, but how do we do that?
And I name that even from just at levels of supervisors as well. Because something that the women of color have named is, I want to be having conversations with my managers around, what are my next steps? Like, where do you want to go after this role? And, you know, what does it mean for a supervisor who’s like, the feedback I’ve received is, I don’t want them to think -- you know, one, I’m afraid of saying the wrong thing, right? So that’s the first thing, but two, what does that conversation actually look like? And of course, someone like me that’s like, just-- have the conversation, just start it, right? And I can understand someone else who’s like, I still don’t want to say the wrong thing, I still don’t know what it means to mentor, I've never mentored a woman of color. You know, some supervisors have never been over a woman of color in the workplace.
So I think even that, just realizing, where I would go, let’s just do the thing -- taking a step back and going, what are the resources people need in order to feel like they can be the supervisor for the woman of color in their department and meet their needs? Because oftentimes we’re not voicing how we're feeling truly, and you just assume we’re okay because we haven’t gone to human resources and complained. So it’s like trying to tear down what people assume how we’re feeling in the workplace in order to have a conversation with us.
15:22
Aishah Rashied Hyman:
Thank you. Wonderful conversation. We could talk on and on and on about all of those things. But we do want to make sure we give time to the other presenters. So for those who are in the chat, please continue to share your questions. We’ve reserved some time at the end to tackle the questions so please keep them coming. I see some great questions here for Whitney. So we’ll hold those and we’ll have Whitney answer those questions at the end of the webinar.
So, we have another story. Again, we want to give voice to folks who are experiencing challenges, and what that experience is like for a lot of people of color working in public media. And so we’re going to share another story before we go to our next presenter.
Unidentified voice:
I was the sole Black member of the digital services team. My three team members were all managers, even though there was only four of us. They also were all white. One member in particular yelled at me almost every day. It started within days of me working there. She once
screamed at me because she suggested putting a border around an image, and I said, thanks, but I liked how my final piece turned out without. She berated me for my choice and started crying and claiming I was mistreating her by not listening. I was then forced to apologize in front of the entire team, all white, for not taking her suggestion. They also told me that she was allowed to yell and lose her temper at me because she was “Italian” which made her “spicy.”
Things progressively got worse, and my mental health declined. I gave one last-ditch effort to stay, but asked to work from home part of the week like my white peers so I could get some help. They denied my request, and when they found out I had decided to go in-patient at a crisis center, they told everyone I was doing it to start drama, and they did not check to see if I was okay in coming back to work. Instead, they just ignored my messages and never spoke to me again, and that was that. I never in a million years expected that sort of treatment from a workplace, especially in public radio.
Aishah Rashied Hyman:
So again, that’s a real story from someone working in public media that was shared with us anonymously to respect their privacy and also their job. And we are highlighting these stories,
illuminating these, so we can have some context for the data and understand that these are real people living these experiences.
Alright, I do want to keep us moving. So our next presenter, we’re so grateful to have him, Tom Godell, General Manager from WUKY. Tom, so let’s talk about what prompted your station to want to embark on this DEI journey.
18:43
Tom Godell:
Sure. Well first of all, I just want to take a minute to thank Whitney and NPR for all that you have done for the public radio system regarding this issue. Because it has been really great to see the leadership and the ideas coming from NPR, and it’s been an inspiration to all of us. I think the first time I heard John Lansing speak is when he said, “Diversity is not a side project, but our main work.” And I wrote that down and immediately put it as the signature on my emails, because I wanted to remind myself, but I also wanted to remind everyone else who I correspond with, that this is important.
And I think what really started our journey was the racial justice protests from last summer. We sent a reporter to Louisville to cover one of the protests, and she got tear gassed at that session. So this is something that was very immediate to us, and had a direct impact on our station, on our news coverage.
But at the same time, we were engaged in our strategic planning process. So seeing this happenings playing out on one side, and working on our strategic plan, it made me realize, we need to look inward. We need to look at what we’re doing as a station to address the same kind of concerns that people are addressing in these racial justice protests. And so I wanted to take a very strong look inward and incorporate that into the plan. We rewrote our mission statement to include diversity as a part of that -- diversity, equity, and inclusion -- and we really undertook a number of conversations within the station to start talking about these issues, and really having an impact before there were problems. I’m not aware of any issues that we had at the station that prompted us to do this, it’s just something I wanted to do proactively, and start having these conversations.
Aishah Rashied Hyman:
Well that’s fantastic. I think, like you’re talking about, a lot of people working in public media, it seems -- at least if you follow a lot of the social media threads and things like that -- that a lot of people working in the public media system were awakened during the time of the social justice protests and are wanting to not just, like you said, react to things, but be proactive, and get ahead of these issues that might be happening at your station and you might not even be aware of it.
So the next question I have for you, Tom, is, what has that work been like for you so far? What have been the challenges? What have been the victories? What have been the things that surprised you or the things that have worried you?
Tom Godell:
Well, for me it’s been a steep learning curve. I mean, I thought I understood diversity. I thought I understood inclusion. And I realized that I had a long way to go on this journey as a man, as a white man. And, you know, years ago I remember my wife watching television, and she was watching the Oprah Winfrey Show, and one of Oprah’s guests said, “Well, all white people are racist.” And I said, “No! That’s not me, I’m not like that.” Yet, what I've come to realize is that we’ve all-- I mean, as a white man, I've spent all this period of my life as someone of privilege. And yes, there are things I've internalized in this process that I need to be aware of. So there’s been a learning process for me.
It's also, I think, been important to educate and work with my colleagues not just in the station, but at our university. We’re a university licensee, so I report to a vice president at the University of Kentucky. And this was not something we were going to do in isolation. And let’s be frank, too, that University of Kentucky does not have the greatest reputation over its history of being the most inclusive organization. I think our current president has done tremendous things to change that. I think this is not the place that you stereotypically might think of as the University of Kentucky. We've come a long way as an institution. But I wanted to be sure that we were on board with what the university was doing, and they were on board with us.
So I began a number of conversations with our office of diversity-- Equity and Inclusion is what it’s called, the Office of Equity and Inclusion. And I wanted to make sure that, particularly once we signed on and said that we would participate with Public Media For All, that those 11 action items that PMFA talks about were consistent with the university’s. And they were, to the most part. What was interesting was that there were some new wrinkles on things. Our university had not thought about, for example, making raises dependent on achieving DEI goals for supervisors. And while that’s not something that’s currently happening on campus, it’s a conversation we’ve started. We’re starting to think about these things both at the station level and at the university level. So I’m excited about that.
I’ve learned that this encompasses not just this institutional equity office, but also HR and our office of compensation. So we’ve all got to work together to make this happen. And I’m very excited about the process, and that we are talking more globally at the university about these things now.
Aishah Rashied Hyman:
Well I just want to affirm so many great things that you’ve said, that you started the conversation, even though, you know, it’s a lot of hard work ahead of you, you may not have all the answers, there may be some challenges being that you’re a university licensee so
you’ve got to align with the university. But you’ve at least started the conversation. I also love hearing that you evaluated all of the action items to determine if they were aligned with what
the university would be willing to do. I think that’s really important just to start there. Just to decide, like, even if we can’t get them all done immediately, that that’s not the expectation. I think the expectation is just to start. Just to start somewhere.
And also, I just appreciate your honesty, just to say, look, as a white man, there’s so many things that I just didn’t know, and so much to learn. There's so much for all of us to learn, I think, in this work and in this process. So thank you, Tom, for your candor and for your willingness to share what’s happening at your station.
Tom Godell:
Sure, my pleasure.
25:40
Aishah Rashied Hyman:
For folks who have questions for Tom, please put them in the Q&A area. You can also leave your comments and questions in the chat and we will come back at the end of the webinar to address those. All right, we’re going to go to one more story before we hear from the team at KERA.
Unidentified voice:
When I walked into a department meeting, a white male staff person asked the general manager to bring in an interpreter to translate “ebonics”. I had not even opened my mouth to speak yet.
Aishah Rashied Hyman:
So again, that was a story from-- someone submitted it anonymously through the Public Media For All website. if you’ve got a story that you want to share anonymously, you can go to our website and do it that way. We’d like to hear from you about your experiences, and of course we’ll protect your identity and keep that private. You don't even have to put that into the website when you submit your story. Also, these stories are not representative of KERA or WUKY or NPR or any of the organizations that our presenters represent. These are just anonymous stories that we’ve received through the Public Media For All website.
All right, so now we have the team from KERA. We're just delighted to have them. I actually heard Nico speak at a diversity, equity, and inclusion webinar probably, I don’t know, several months ago. and I just remember thinking, wow, there are people who are really doing this work, even before Public Media For All got started. So just want to give a shoutout to the folks at KERA for being, really, frontrunners. So we've got Nico Leone, the president and CEO of KERA here with us today, Sylvia Komatsu, Chief Content and Diversity Officer at KERA, and Denita Powell Malvern, Director of Engagement and Inclusion at KERA and KXT. And they’re going to tell us-- they’re going to start by telling us what prompted their station to start their DEI journey and then they’re going to take us along that journey a little bit from there.
27:57
Nico Leone:
Thanks, Aishah. And thanks for putting this together. And feel free to jump in with questions whenever you're ready for us to stop talking amongst ourselves. So I walked in the door at KERA in February 2020, and on my way in, did a little bit of self assessment. You know, I had a few ideas about things we had done right at my previous station, as well as some ways I thought I could improve on as a leader. My assessment of DEI at KERA started even during the hiring process and in some initial conversations that I had with Sylvia and my chief operating officer after being hired. I could see places where it was clear that attention had been paid to diversity, equity, and inclusion, for example, hiring in the newsroom, but also some places where there were clear needs. And Sylvia and Chris helped me identify some immediate actions that I could take walking in the door. So I really felt like I had an opportunity to make it a priority, along with a broader focus on audience development.
We started our conversation in my first week, in February. We immediately converted our internships to paid, and my second week, John Lansing visited as part of some collaborative fundraising meetings with NPR. And in speaking with our staff and our board, he talked about the existential need to reach new audiences, younger audiences, and more diverse audiences, which gave us a language that I think we’ve really focused on since then. We identified a couple initial priorities for our work, including focusing on policies that support staff, and starting to shift our culture from hierarchical to more inclusive and transparent. And in March of 2020 we invited staff to join three internal task forces, focused on DEI in our audience, in our staffing, and in our content. About a third of our staff joined a task force -- there was clearly an interest in engaging on these topics. And we’ve largely used the work of those task forces as a roadmap for the past year. Sylvia, do you want to share a little bit of what was going on internally at KERA that helped make you think this work was necessary?
Sylvia Komatsu:
Sure. Good afternoon everyone. Well when Nico first arrived, we talked about the fact that
KERA already had a strong reputation in the community, we had a long history of reporting on race and social justice issues, [inaudible] local journalism, but like so many other public media stations, we did not turn that around and we had not applied that same scrutiny to our own organization. And we were not holding ourselves accountable to the same high standards that we were applying to others in our community.
Given that, say, as a whole, we have a remarkably kind and supportive workplace culture, there’s a baseline of respect for everyone, we’ve had some people say KERA’s actually, quote, the nicest place that I’ve ever worked. But what we realized is that that “niceness” also covered up a lot of really hard issues that we’re dealing with now. Nico mentioned transparency, that’s one of the issues we’re wrestling with. Also, helping to make sure that people feel comfortable and safe by speaking up. We realized that has not always been the case. And really trying to make sure there’s an inclusive workforce, and that there’s a sense of belonging, right, across the organization. And this is after years and years of having a very hierarchical structure. So that was the overall situation.
[Siri noises]
Nico Leone:
Denita, can you share a little bit about kind of how things have gone and how the journey’s been for the organization?
Denita Malvern:
Absolutely. So I would have to say that overall the staff has been pretty receptive to embracing our DEI strategy thus far. Of course as Nico mentioned, we had three groups that were
assembled around staffing, sourcing, and audience to help inform our work. And I have to say that Nico formed a small team from all levels of the organization to really begin working on those recommendations. So it wasn’t just lip service, it was actually putting action to recommendations of the staff members. We also assembled a DEI advisory council to keep us accountable. So there are about 10 individual staff members who have come together to make sure that we are actually meeting those recommendations that we set forward as an organization.
Of course, a lot of people are excited about this initiative, but there are of course departments within the organization that have more acute issues that need to be addressed, so we do plan to really look at our diversity trainings and management trainings to address those issues going forward. We have several people who feel that the pacing is great, it’s manageable, and then there are other people who feel as if they’re on this excitement and they really want to move things along. So I think that we’re being strategic in our efforts as we go forward. We have worked with organizations to do our trainings, and we’re happy to say that we have a firm that’s been hired to do an internal climate study of the organization. So we plan to use those results as the next phase of our DEI work moving forward. So we’re excited about that as well.
Nico Leone:
Thanks Denita. And I think more than anything else, we’re looking at this work through a lens of learning, and really focusing on trying to be inclusive, being transparent, and taking a holistic approach. You know, I think one of the things that Sylvia, Denita, and I share is a view that a piecemeal approach has not worked for public media. So we're really having a lot of conversations about how to bake this in as more than just a top priority, but really making it just part of our work moving forward.
Sylvia, can you talk a little bit about, kind of, some of the areas we want to strengthen most at this time? And then Denita, maybe you can talk a little bit about what comes next with our audience work after that.
Sylvia Komatsu:
We’re particularly focused on looking at professional development, including retention, career development, and management training. Because we realized that if we are going to set on this journey, we have to give our staff the tools and the resources they need to be able to do this work. And so we are really focused right now on training. We are looking at-- working especially with our managers right now and ensuring that [inaudible] staff, to make sure that people can bring their true selves to work every day, that we have a clear career path for everyone across the station. And also, again, that we are ensuring inclusion at all levels [inaudible].
Denita Malvern:
So for our audiences, we did receive a grant from a local foundation here in Dallas to help us continue learning more about our audiences. And so we will have a twofold approach, one, to
learn more about our existing audiences, and also, as we’re looking to reach newer, younger, and more diverse audiences, what does that look like? Where do we need to be moving in those spaces? And so we plan to begin on that survey probably in the next coming weeks. But honestly we’re looking at some of the NPR data to kind of help inform our market, and then kind of use that as a springboard to move forward.
I’d also say that one thing we’ve done well in the past is the assembly of our Community Advisory Board. I would say back in 2013 or 14 it was, we made a conscious and concerted effort to diversify our board. And we’re looking not just at geographic location -- because we have a very large broadcast area here in the Dallas / Fort Worth / North Texas area, so geographic diversity, ethinic/racial diversity, gender diversity, to really reflect, you know, all the voices within our broadcast area. So we want to be more strategic in how we’re using our CAB to help us reach audiences that we don’t have current access to, and making sure they have more of a voice to express some of the needs in the communities that they work with more closely.
36:15
Aishah Rashied Hyman:
That’s all so fantastic. So Nico, if that wraps up you all’s presentation, I’m going to move over to the question and answer. Okay. Well first, I just want to say thank you to Denita and Sylvia and Nico from KERA. You guys are setting such a wonderful example for what is possible for stations that want to be inclusive, transparent, and holistic. Love all of that. Thank you so very much for sharing the work that you’re doing.
I do want to switch over to our question and answer period, because we've been getting lots of great questions. We’re going to go today until 4:00 but-- to respect our presenters, our presenters are going to leave us at 4:00. However, we are going to leave the Q&A and the chat open a little bit past that, so that if we don’t get to all the questions, you can still submit them, and we’ll make sure that the questions get to the presenters, and so that we can still follow up to you to get answers to your questions if we can’t can’t capture the answers for you today before 4:00.
All right, so let’s get to it. This first question is for Whitney. Can NPR Member Partnership put together a webinar to share the focus group findings with stations?
Whitney Maddox:
I can ask that question. I think it is a great idea, first of all. But I say that, let me ask, because I don’t know if there was already talks about if we can or if it was planning to happen already. But I will definitely ask that, and I already put that down as a bullet to go back and ask my chief diversity officer. So yes.
And then, can I also ask, as I’m giving back responses, do I send it back to you, Aishah, to give out to people? How does that work?
Aishah Rashied Hyman:
You know what, I’ll hit you up after this, and we’ll coordinate and figure it all out.
Whitney Maddox:
Beautiful.
Aishah Rashied Hyman:
Because there probably will be a number of things here that we might want to share really broadly, so yeah, so we’ll coordinate.
Whitney Maddox:
Okay.
Aishah Rashied Hyman:
Alright, thanks Whtiney. Another one for you. Can you expand on who participates in the content critique? Is it mostly content creators, or do you include other departments such as marketing, development, etc.? And I would say, I’d be curious to how NPR handles that, but also WUKY and KERA to talk about what your process is a little bit in terms of content review, if you have one in place.
Whitney Maddox:
Yeah, agreed, I’m happy you said that. Yeah, so right now it is the content critique, so with our news team specifically. But I will say outside, with marketing and development, they are having their own conversations about how can we-- I was in one today, with marketing -- how can we make sure that we’re thinking about DEI in the things that we put out? So while they’re not a part of the content council that we have monthly, they are doing that work as well.
Aishah Rashied Hyman:
Okay, what about KERA or WUKY? Do you have a committee, a panel? How does that work?
Nico Leone:
Sylvia or Denita, do you want to take that?
Sylvia Komatsu:
First of all, love the idea of the STAR committee that you’ve done Whitney. So we will take that as well. I love that you meet regularly. Right now we are tracking our sourcing, and we have a staff sourcing task force that’s going to be coming back with recommendations, actually this week. So I’m sure we’ll have many, many, many suggestions about what we can do to be more accountable. Again, we are tracking, but I love what you’ve got, which is, there’s that closing the loop, how is that tracking actually getting reflected in the content.
Whitney Maddox:
Mmhmm.
Tom Godell:
And we’re just at the beginning of the process of addressing the content piece of this. Our news department is working with NPR and with some other stations about ways to diversify the content and track all of that. So we will be evaluating that over the next several months. We’ve actually built into our strategic plan some goals in terms of diversity of content and diversity of sources. And that’s something we’re going to be looking at very carefully over the coming weeks and months.
Sylvia Komatsu:
And one quick note, data and metrics are critical to our work moving forward. So we are trying to make sure that we have very specific audience goals and specific audience metrics, right, for different platforms. So that will be [inaudible] ways to hold ourselves accountable.
Aishah Rashied Hyman:
All right, thank you for that. I’ve got another question, I’m going to summarize it. But basically we got an anonymous question from someone who says that their station is reluctant to sign up for Public Media For All. And so they’re looking for advice on how to pitch this to their station. So what advice would you all-- I mean, in y’all’s case, your general manager and your CEO of your station was on board from the beginning. But if that weren’t the case do you have any advice on how you would have presented this or pitched it?
Denita Malvern:
I guess I would pose one question for that individual who posed the question. Is your organization or station currently working in the DEI space? Because even though they
may not have signed on for this at this juncture, in the organization’s efforts toward DEI, are they moving things along? and I think for some that’s the first step. What are they doing within the organization to address the issues that, you know, are critical to your staff. So I think that’s the question. I think that for some people, if it’s uncomfortable, you do need to continue to move the conversation along, but you have to meet them where they are and help them along the journey, and let them see that in order to move along successfully as an organization, you’ve got to address these issues. So I think it’s just a conversation. Start where they are, and just present, you know, some of the issues, looking at the content, looking at the audiences, and make sure they understand that they’ve got to move forward. It may not be a leap immediately to Public Media For All, but it’s got to be a step within the process.
Aishah Rashied Hyman:
So start where you are. Yeah.
Nico Leone:
Yeah, one of the ways we’ve talked about that -- and I don’t know whether this is going to be helpful or not -- but I think for us to be serious about this work and have it be more than just window dressing, it has to be transparent, and it has to be accountable. And for it to truly be accountable, I think accountability has to both be invited and welcome. So we’ve looked at Public Media For All as a version of industry accountability, but we didn’t want to stop there. Our staff advisory council provides a layer of accountability within the staff, and then we’ve taken one additional step by joining a group called Dallas Truth and Racial Healing and Transformation as a local version of accountability. So that’s been some of the language we’ve used. I don't know if that’s useful to you or not, but it certainly seems to have resonated with us.
43:15
Aishah Rashied Hyman:
That’s fantastic, thank you for sharing that. Okay, another question, for the whole entire panel. How important do you feel it’s been to be -- or is it, to be public with your efforts? To let the public know about the efforts you're doing inside of your organizations. Does that matter to you all in terms of how you’re going about doing your DEI work?
Whitney Maddox:
I’m happy to start. Yes, so I-- one thing I’ll say-- with, the caveat is, with the women of color spaces that I mentioned earlier that I had, I intentionally said in those spaces, for instance,
this is a safe space, the things that you share are confidential. So in moments like that, I value when I’m not going public and saying, this is what they said, because of what the commitment I made in those types of spaces.
But absolutely, back to the point that we’ve continued to hear today, was about accountability.
Sometimes it does take our audience knowing what we say we’re going to do, to hold us accountable to do that. And I look at it as a partnership, in addition to being about accountability. But I’m saying to the audience, I want you to partner with me in making sure we do this right. So when you turn on your radio and things sound different, or you look to our website and things look differently, know that it’s because of what we said publicly as to why it’s different. and when it's not different, I want you to hold us accountable to why it should be, because we told you it was going to be. So I think that can be a great starter to a dialogue with our audience coming and engaging on a journey with us, not with them just going, oh it’s going to be different this day and time. No, this is a journey. So you should be on the journey with us, in doing DEI work and being antiracist, all the things, as we do the same things. So I look at it as a partnership and an opportunity for accountability, absolutely.
Nico Leone:
I think from my perspective, there’s a lot of value in being public, and there’s even more
in being transparent. But there’s also a line that we’re trying not to cross, of being
performative in the ways that we’re being public. So we try to be transparent but make sure that the work is rooted in the reality of the work we’re doing day in and day out, rather than being
focused on, like, the public aspects of it. So that’s how we’re trying to ride that line.
Denita Malvern:
I would agree with that, Nico. I also think that it’s important for building trust. If you want the community to really trust your staff and your reporters and your engagement teams to share the stories and share the proper and the appropriate narrative, they have to trust you and know at some level that you are working honestly and authentically in this space. And so I think that’s why it’s important to divulge some of that in your work with partners and community stakeholders.
Sylvia Komatsu:
I think we’ve also heard from our staff as well. To them, this is reinforcing that we’re serious about it. This is just not what we’re doing internally, but we are, by being transparent, letting others know that we’re going to meet the standards that we’re setting.
Aishah Rashied Hyman:
And I guess I just want to add one thing to this, because-- I’m nodding so much, my head is starting to hurt a little bit, I’m just going to stop nodding because I’m in agreement with everything, I’m so happy to hear all that you’ve shared. But one thing I just wanted to add is that this work is public whether we’re conscious of it or not inside of our stations and organizations. That is literally what we are, is we’re public organizations. And so it shows up on our air, it shows up in our reporting. Our audiences oftentimes signal to us that we’re not doing enough to represent them. I mean, at my own station, occasionally we get a note from a viewer or a listener who will say, I didn’t like the way that story was reported, or, this programming lineup, there’s some gaps here, I don’t see enough diversity in your programming lineup.
Other ways I think that it’s public and how it’s signaled to you at your station or at your organization is when your donor file, your membership file, is out of sync with the diversity of your community. Or when your audience, when you get your data about your audience, and the
demographics of your listening audience or your viewing audience is out of sync with the actual demographics of your community. So it’s public, it’s happening, this movement is happening whether you're a part of it or not. So why not be a part of it so you can continue to sustain your audience and your revenue for your station? So I just wanted to make that little plug, that it’s public already. [laughs]
All right, well I’ve been curious about this question so I want to make sure we get this one in. Has there been any effort to tie funding from foundations or sponsors or CPB or other major public media funders to authentic DEI implementation? So I guess maybe what that question means is, have there been any funders saying, you know what, if you’re not going to do this work, then you’re not eligible for a grant or a sponsorship? So Whitney, Nico, Sylvia, Denita, Tom, have you heard about any funders making this, kind of, part of the requirements?
Nico Leone:
I’m starting to see a little bit of that at the local level, you know, with some funders who are putting increased scrutiny on everything from staff composition to board composition and things like that. I think a lot of funders who are active in the space, for many of them it’s a newer area of focus over the last year, and they’re still figuring out the right ways to bring that in. So that’s part of what we’re seeing at the local level so far.
Whitney Maddox:
Yeah, I love the question. I would say, our-- I want to go back and ask. I will say, a part of the conversations I’ve been a part of has been, how can we be more intentional about saying how DEI is a part of our strategic plan, and going after sponsorships that value that. So that has definitely been a part of conversation that I’ve been a part of. But I don’t know if there have been sponsorships who have said, we’re not going to unless this is a part of, you know, your number one plan. But I will definitely ask so I am aware of that moving forward. Thank you.
Aishah Rashied Hyman:
Yeah, yeah. I think that’s a great question. I’ve been thinking about that from the perspective of membership. Will we start to see donors say, look, until you show us your DEI statement or kind of the status of diversity work inside of your station, I’m not ready to write a check to the station. I’ve just been curious, is that day going to come?
Whitney Maddox:
That’s the real work, right, like that’s when you’re like, putting my money where my mouth is, kind of thing. Yeah.
50:14
Aishah Rashied Hyman:
Absolutely. All right, so we’ve gotten a couple of questions about the STAR program. So Whitney, can you repeat what the STAR acronym stands for? And the question-- the second part of the question is, would NPR be able to provide a primer for best practices in the near future for stations that want to establish a STAR program?
Whitney Maddox:
Yes. So one thing I am doing is, I’m in the process of shooting a video, so that you see my face, thank you, but also to introduce myself to stations, because I realized Keith Woods has been the only person that you all have seen and known, right, because I just started. But I’m putting together a video to say hey, but also to say, how can you see -- now that there’s two of us -- us supporting you and your stations? So absolutely look for that, and be able to provide that feedback in the form that we’re going to include in that email.
So, STAR. So I come from Georgetown University, where I was doing DEI work there. So I spent much of my time, when I started STAR, which again stands for Start Talking About Race -- it is about dialogue, and dialoguing about racism, white supremacy, all the things. And I started it because students were saying it wasn’t happening in the classroom, not through dialogue. It was from an intellectual place, and that’s not how I think we need to really be talking about racism in America. So I said okay, let’s-- I started this dialogue space, and students were coming from all over. And I eventually moved into classrooms, and our police department at Georgetown, so everyone was a part of this dialogue. And when I interviewed for this job, I said I wanted to bring-- I told Georgetown, you can’t have the name, because it belongs to me, I'm taking it with me to NPR, and I wanted to host these dialogues within NPR.
So I start them at the end of the month. It really is, if you never talk about race ever in your entire life, or racism, all the way to, if you talk about it all the time. So just an entry way for everyone to be able to come together with their colleagues and talk about it from a, yeah, like, from a outside-of-NPR perspective, but from internally, how does it impact how we do our work and how we inform the decisions that we're about to make. So ideally we get to a place months from now where it’s just a part of team meetings. Like, oh, let’s talk about racism right here with this thing. What are we missing around white supremacy around the decision we just made. So that’s the hope.
Aishah Rashied Hyman:
Thank you, Whitney.
Whitney Maddox:
Yeah.
Aishah Rashied Hyman:
All right, I think we have a few more minutes to get in a couple more questions. Okay. This one, I think I’m going to table it but I do want to say it out loud, because I think that we can send you this-- some information via email instead of trying to answer the question live. The question is, what diversity and inclusion recruiting resources are available for small stations that are mostly student-staffed? So I guess the question to the panel is like a yes or no. Would you be willing any resources you have so that we can pass those out to folks who’ve signed up for the webinar today? Is that a yes?
Tom Godell:
Sure.
Aishah Rashied Hyman:
All right. So we’re going to keep it rolling. Okay. Another question. How did you foster buy-in from people of color working in your station who were tired of DEI promises from white managers, who rightfully are distrustful of intentions of said efforts? So maybe you’ve got people of color who, you know, have kind of gotten a little jaded, and said, all right, we’ve gone through this before and nothing really stuck. Why should I participate again? Did that happen at your station or at your organization?
Tom Godell:
Yeah, absolutely. And I think the first question that I got was, how is this different from other efforts that the station has done? And, you know, it needs to be different. And what I responded was, first of all, we are part of a larger effort. We’re not doing this on our own. We’re
partnering with Public Media For All. We’re also working with Celeste Headlee and her Headway group on the antiracist open letter that came out earlier this year. So we’re not on our own here. There is some accountability that has not been present before.
And we’re accountable to these-- we’ve made this commitment. We’ve made a commitment to Public Media For All that there are 11 action items, and we are going to act on 10 of those in the next two years. And whether we succeed or not is going to be public knowledge. So, yes, there is a difference this time, and frankly I want you to hold me accountable. I’m here to ensure that these efforts are moving forward. So I need you to be able to speak up and to talk to me and say, you know, this isn’t different, or, it is. I just, I want to know. I want that line of communication open with my staff.
Nico Leone:
I might add, I think for me the most important thing about that question is just acknowledging, sort of like, the legitimacy of that concern and that skepticism, and that there’s no way around that other than to just to outlast it through sustained effort in a transparent, inclusive, and accountable way. So I think from a position of leadership as a white male, I just need to accept that that’s going to be a part of it, welcome it, and work through it by doing the work.
55:50
Aishah Rashied Hyman:
Thank you, Nico and Tom. And we’ve got time for, I think, one more question, and then we’re going to do our thank yous and acknowledgments. But this question has come up for the Public Media For All group before, and actually this question often comes up amongst people of color. We’ve been-- I know I’ve been learning about the concept of intersectionality, and that there are different kinds of marginalized groups, and sometimes you’re in multiple marginalized groups, right. And so I think this question kind of gets to that a little bit. The question is, when looking at DEI, I believe we must also work as stations to prioritize all aspects of DEI, which expand beyond race. Is it inclusive of religion, gender, identity, ageism? They’re all factors that impact organizations’ DEI standards. What are some of the ways that organizations can make sure to be inclusive of these factors as well? So we’ve been talking a lot about race, but-- curious, is
race where you’re starting, or are you tackling all different kinds of -isms within your organizations? Are you phasing it out? What’s your thought about that? And I’d love to hear from the full group if we can.
Whitney Maddox:
I’m happy to start. So, it’s funny you say that, because I came in, and I was-- based off of our climate survey at NPR, I focused heavily on women of color. And naturally you get other groups of marginalized groups -- as you said -- saying, what about me, what about me. And so, you know, one thing I will echo is that our CEO John Lansing said, this is not a zero-sum game, that just because we are focusing in our case on women of color, doesn’t mean that we’re not thinking about men of color, doesn’t mean that we’re not thinking about all the other -isms, you know, and all the other groups that you named. And someone-- you know, for myself, I always think about, what happens when you do focus on those who sometimes can be the most marginalized, and how everyone reaps the benefit of that work. So I always name that, because that’s real. That is real.
So yes. It is not that, even at NPR, that we’re saying we’re going to ignore and not acknowledge
all of the other things that other groups are dealing with. And I intentionally have one-on-ones where I’m saying, what are you facing, what are you facing in your department, what are you facing as an individual that shows up at NPR, and how can I elevate that to our all-staff? We have all-staff meetings every week. And so some of the things that we’re starting to do now is have these open dialogues about the -isms that show up at NPR. So absolutely, completely agree.
Aishah Rashied Hyman:
Other panelists want to weigh in before we wrap up on that question? All right. Well, there are lots more questions in the Q&A, and I’m sure there are much more in the chat. Although we are
wrapping up, and I’m going to do some quick acknowledgments before we go, please do keep your questions coming. If you’d like to participate in Public Media For All, please sign up on the website. It’s PublicMediaForAll.com. I’ve seen some questions here in the Q&A and in the chat about, how can I get involved as a company, a corporate partner, an individual? There’s a way for everyone to participate. That’s actually how the website is set up, so that you can choose if you want to be an ally, if you’re an individual, if you’re a person of color, if you’re an organization. There’s a way for you to participate in this work. There’s room for everybody in this work. So yes, please sign up. Our goal is to do these webinars on a quarterly basis, because there is so much to discuss and so much to work out and work with each other on. We’re here to call everyone in, not to call anybody out. We’re in this work together. So thank you for being here.
Before we go, I absolutely want to say, just so much gratitude to Tom Godell from WUKY, thank you so much. Sylvia Komatsu, Denita Malvern, Nico Leone from KERA, thank you so very much. Whitney Maddox from NPR, and shoutout to Keith Woods, who couldn’t be here. We could not do this work without folks who are brave enough to say, I don’t have all the answers, we don’t have all the answers, but by golly we’re going to start. We’re going to make this system better. So thank you for being among our first to report out on the work that you're doing for Public Media For All. That takes a lot of guts to do that, and I know that you’ve inspired others, and you really are setting the bar for what can happen at stations and at organizations when they just decide, as Tom said, to just get started. Just start. So thank you so much for being here and sharing your time with us.
We also want to say really quickly, thank you to our sponsoring partners again: Public Media Women in Leadership, the National Federation of Community Broadcasters, Public Radio Association of Development Officers, Public Media Journalists Association, and Public Radio Program Directors Association. Thank you so much for partnering with Public Media For All. We also want to give another big thank you to LKA Fundraising and Communications. Becky Chinn and Lindsay Benedict, thank you so much for sponsoring our promotion to help us get the word out about this webinar. And a huge thank you to the team at Carl Bloom Associates: Jodi Scheib, Christina McPhillips, Rob Bloom, it’s been wonderful to work with you guys for a decade and a half, and we hope to continue to work with you -- I do -- for years to come. Thank you for supporting this webinar.
And thank you to everyone in the chat and the Q&A, all the attendees. Again we had almost 800 people sign up. Thank you for your commitment to addressing diversity, equity, and inclusion in the public media system. We’re going to make this system better together. Thank you so much. I hope everyone has a wonderful afternoon. Goodbye and thank you to our presenters, feel free to sign off. We’re going to stay here with our cameras off, but we’re going to continue to collect those questions, and folks, we will send those answers out as best we can to your questions. Thanks again everyone.
