Time gets ‘thumbs down’ for staff’s lack of racial diversity

New Orleans, La., United States (NewsBahn) – Time magazine has been given a “thumbs down” for a lack of racial diversity in its writing staff by a national organization of African-African journalists.

The “Thumbs Down” award was presented by the National Association of Black Journalists to the magazine for “reporting, commentary or other content found to be racially insensitive, or for practices at odds with the mission of NABJ.”

The award was announced Friday during NABJ’s national convention in New Orleans.

“TIME Magazine once boasted a number of black correspondents, including Wallace Terry, Jack White, Janice Simpson, Sylvester Monroe. However the publication currently does not have a full-time black correspondent,” NABJ president Gregory Lee said in a statement. “Additionally, the magazine has eliminated blacks from major news coverage, including a special commemorative issue on the 10th anniversary of the Sept.11, 2011, terrorist attacks that depicted no African Americans. Also, the magazine recently lost its only black correspondent. We feel that TIME Magazine can do more to champion diversity, this is why we are bringing attention to TIME Magazine.”

Errin Haines, the organization’s vice president for print, added that ” the absence of black journalists at places like TIME sends a message that we are not valued for what we could bring to such venerable and influential legacy publications, and gives little hope to those black journalists who would hope to one day see their names on the masthead.”

Previous recipients of the “thumbs down” include columnist Armstrong Williams, former New York Times reporter Jayson Blair, and cable news networks.

A “Best Practices” award was presented to TV One’s Find Our Missing television show. It was cited for countering ” the media’s tendency to focus on white women and children in peril, telling the stories of missing black people in a docudrama format.”

NABJ is the largest organization of journalists of color in the nation.

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