At a time when newsrooms and other businesses are responding to a national reckoning on issues such as racism and equity, the Star Tribune on Tuesday named its first assistant managing editor for diversity and community.
Kyndell Harkness, a photo editor and 20-year veteran at the newspaper, is expected to move into the leadership role in the next few weeks. Her appointment comes on the heels of an internal discussion about racism, diversity and inequity in the newsroom and the effect it has on the newspaper's community coverage.
That discussion reached new heights after George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis police in May, setting off protests across the country.
As in other newsrooms nationwide, journalists of color at the Star Tribune discussed needed changes and presented a list of demands to management, which included the hiring of an editor who could create a more equitable newsroom culture and hold the paper internally accountable for its news coverage.
A major push by the group is to hire more people of color and publish an annual diversity report that gives readers a better understanding of who is telling their community stories.
"The room is too white," Harkness said. "When you have a homogenous room, it makes it hard to see the nuances when covering diverse communities. You need people in the room who've been there."
The group's demands coincided with the release of a pay equity study by employee union members. The study noted pay gaps across gender and race among its members.
In response, top newsroom editors acknowledged that they are committed to recruiting and retaining more women and journalists of color and bringing more racial diversity to editing and leadership ranks. They recently announced that Myron Medcalf, a Black journalist with ESPN and a former Star Tribune reporter, will write two metro columns a month.
