I didn’t think this story would ever see the light of day considering what a running joke it had become on Capitol Hill. The local Knight Ridder outlet deemed it necessary to check on the racial and gender breakdown of North Carolina congressional staff and got stiff-armed by Rep. Sue Myrick’s office among others:
“We are not trying to be cute or coy, we just see this every-other-year diversity story as nothing more than a witch hunt by the Observer to make sure local politicians are living up to some standard that the Observer has deemed itself worthy of setting,” [Myrick chief of staff, Hal Weatherman] wrote. “We hire our employees based on merit. We don’t ask or care what demographic they fall in.”
The Observer also still deflects the points about its own diversity — or lack thereof — from a political perspective. After the upcoming election it could be a fun project to check registration records and see if there is a single registered Republican at the Observer. That situation would be hard to square with publisher Peter Ridder’s declaration that “diversity is a business advantage, as well as the right thing to do, for any institution that values its credibility with the public.”
Yep, Peter that credibility thing is key.
