 and welcome to this week's Informed and Engaged. I'm Lashara Bunting, Director of Journalism and Eye Foundation. In the past several weeks, we've seen dozens of journalists of color who have come forward and shared their personal stories of racism and newsrooms. And as a result, we've seen renewed efforts around diversity, equity and inclusion in journalism. For today's show, we wanna go deep and talk about the weight. Some might say the burden that journalists of color experience in newsrooms and the tangible solutions that have emerged to help address these issues. Today, re-adjoined by Erin Williams, co-founder of the Journalists of Color Slack and an investigative data reporter for the Washington Post and Michelle Lee, President of the Asian American Journalist Association and a national political reporter at the Washington Post. This is gonna be a great discussion. And for those watching, please submit your questions in the Q&A. If you're on Facebook, submit them there. For those on Twitter, please use the hashtag Night Live. We hope to get to a few of those at the end. Thank you for joining us, Michelle and Erin. Thank you so, so much. So let's dive right in. So when you're a journalist of color in newsrooms, right? There is this often an invisible burden, right? And also, right, the invisible work that goes along with that, especially for those of us who wanna push change in newsrooms. I'd like for each of you, you know, briefly to talk to me about how you've handled this throughout your career. Erin, why don't you pass off? Anyone who's there? Okay, I'll start, go ahead. Yeah, so I mean, I think being a journalist of color in a newsroom offers a lot of really exciting opportunities. When you think about the way media covers any group, you know, the model culture of media can over time kind of create a very specific kind of narrative around a group or any kind of organization or people around the world. And so when you get an opportunity to tell those stories, not only as a representative of your community, but also as someone who maybe has seen kind of the other side of media coverage of your community, I think there's a lot of power there. However, often what happens, I feel like as journalists of color, is that we have to kind of play on two fields. Like we have to do the work of being journalists and being fair and accurate and those kind of things. And then on top of that, we have to kind of do this other work to make sure that certain narratives or prejudice or kind of like tropes aren't being reused in our coverage and organizations. And then also I think just dealing with the microaggressions and things like that ourselves. So I think in my career, it's been kind of interesting because I work in data journalism, it's a while it's been a field that's kind of grown over a long period of time. It is one of the newer kind of models within journalism. And so because of that, it offered a lot of opportunity to really early on kind of set what the expectations were. But that being said, I think how I've got along or around it has been kind of having these kind of discussions off network with like my friends, other colleagues and the JLC Slack community kind of came out of that discussion of us just kind of feeling really exhausted of having to consistently talk about microaggressions that we either have from other colleagues or editors or even just framing around coverage of specific people groups. So I mean, I think the JLC Slack specifically is kind of a direct byproduct of my experience and just having to deal with hearing, being in a journalist of color, having to constantly think about not only how you're being seen within the newsroom, but in how your organization as a whole covers just the world at large. And I think you've really touched on a really important part of it for not just journalists, but when you're in sort of the more specialized areas like a data, right? Like investigative journalism, that burden is even harder. Absolutely. Absolutely. We'll talk more about the JLC Slack, which is an invaluable resource. But Michelle, I'd love to hear your take. Yeah, I mean, I connect with that so much. I joined AHA when I was 18 years old as a college freshman coming from Guam and I went to college in Atlanta and I was literally halfway around the world from home and I just didn't know how to start a career in journalism. And the family that I found through AHA was just shaped my career and who I am as a person and really instilled the value of media diversity early. So I feel like over the years, being a working journalist, it's just been second nature for me to make sure that media diversity is just a priority for me. But I started my career in Phoenix, Arizona, where there's a really small API community and I was the one who was trying to connect my news outlet with ethnic media to try to make sure that community's voices are being heard. And this has just been such a big part of just who I am and how I live my career and life. And I feel like that is the case with so many of us journalists of color who care about diversity. And while it's great to have that passion, it takes up a huge chunk of my non-working time. Like I spend probably most of my free time that I'm not sleeping or hanging out with friends like thinking about this, talking about this, working on this, sharing resumes, creating spaces for conversations with friends and colleagues, making sure that people's good work is being elevated. And it's, even though a part of who I am, it is an added burden and something that I have taken on for myself. And I find it so necessary because it's everything from, like Erin said, making sure the right stories are pitched, pushing back to certain narratives that are being formed within the newsroom, making sure that when their jobs open, the right candidates get elevated to the right people who need to see them. But at the same time, there's kind of this pressure that I've faced. I don't know if others have faced as well, but I never want it to seem like I'm sacrificing my work priorities for my non-work, but work adjacent priorities of diversity. So I always have to make sure that I'm doing my work and making sure I'm doing good stories and I'm producing the right stuff as a working journalist, as well as advocating for what I care about, which I believe will improve the industry. So it's been a juggling act my whole career. So this burden, right? This burden seems like a strong word, but really, Michelle, you really point to it because I, in many ways, I think leadership at news organizations really don't understand the additional hours. I like to refer to it as the invisible work. It's important work, but it's invisible work that you don't get credit or paid to do. So to that end, in this moment of reckoning around race, in the world, in the United States, and in journalism, what are the ways in which newsrooms can step up, right? To address this sort of burden that's always existed, what do you think newsrooms can do? I think newsrooms need to really care and put money behind this issue from the top down. We're so used to this as journals of color of our recruiters and bosses hitting us up, like emailing or pulling us into their office and saying, hey, we have this job open. Do you know any diverse candidates who'd be good for that? I do, and I have resumes upon resumes, but I think it's time that editors and recruiters and people at the highest levels of the industry actually develop their own talent network of journalists that they personally monitor and care about and want to recruit into their news organization over a long period of time. I think this needs to be a complete mind shift change in the way newsroom leaders approach hiring and cultivating leaders within their newsroom. One of the things that I've been thinking a lot about is the fact that this fight isn't new. We've been pushing for this for decades. AJ was created in 1981. We're almost 40 years old and we're still having the exact same conversations. And I think the real opportunity here is for people at the highest levels to really make sure that they do their work to care about this and put real funding behind this. It has to come from the real tangible actions of news executives and news owners and the people who fund them and the way that the news executives distribute their money throughout their organization. Yeah, absolutely. Sorry. No, please, please. I was gonna say, yeah, yeah. I mean, Michelle and I briefly spoke about this, but definitely I think basically has to come down to money and resources and positioning. I think there's been a lot of well-intentioned editors and news executives who have tried to address this, but typically what you hear is, my door is always open. If you have, go ahead, see me resumes of diverse candidates or this or that, but it's always the onus comes back on working journals of color to basically do the work for the company. On top of, as Michelle said, do our day jobs, make sure we're still producing excellent journalism at the same time and this work isn't paid. And we do it to some level out of, because we care for our community, because we care about progress or things like that. But a lot of it too, I mean, when I first got into this work, it wasn't because I, like sure to some level, there was like this, me wanting to advocate for journalists of color, but a lot of it came out of pure frustration of feeling like I couldn't break into an industry that I knew I wanted to work at, that I saw other people who, whether they were white or came for more elite colleges had kind of this clear pathways to success. And yet I was coming with the same drive, the same energy and was meeting robots for no other reason that I could ascertain in terms of other than not being, looking like them or coming from the places they come from. And so, I think that this idea of like what can news executives do now? I mean, part of it is like, okay, well, you've had this open door policy, it's like you can come in and say whatever you want, but like, okay, clear, and there's so many examples of journalists who have walked through that door and said, hey, I'm dealing with this, whether it's, and it goes beyond race, right? Whether it's sexism, homophobia, there's journalists who have tried to advocate with indoor organizations, and it's the same kind of rhetoric, which is like, we hear you, I'll bring this up with HR, with other managers, and maybe there's like some kind of meeting, but it doesn't really translate into actual change. I think to translate the actual change goes down to hiring, it goes down to what we incentivize as success, which can look like a lot of different things, whether that's the actual talent you recruit, to the salaries you pay out, to what we decide is good journalism. I mean, all of these things are things that I think news organizations need to think about, and it can't just come from the people like Michelle and I who have been doing this work for years, it has to come from the top down as well. And that, and I mean, only what it's gonna happen right now is pressure, which is what we're seeing groups like AHA and others doing to advocate for this, for what we've been asking for as Michelle said, for like decades at this point. Yeah, and just to add on really quickly, realistically speaking, this bottom up approach that has existed for decades is asking working journalists with no real power to put their own political power within their organization on the line for the purpose of improving the entire organization. When I bring a name to my editors or the recruiters, I'm putting my backing behind that person and making, I'm the vetting person on behalf of another minority journalist that I believe in. And you're asking workers to do this over and over again and continue to use their political capital that is quite limited as an employee. And I think managers and user executives need to recognize that that this burden is not just extra time, it's actually how we perceive and are perceived to have a place in our own newsrooms as well. And I think that when you see newsrooms that actually care from top down and you see newsrooms that don't actually and are working on this bottom up model, it's actually very clear from people like us who actually cares and who doesn't. And it comes out in little ways the way that news executives act and say things publicly and the way they allocate their money. And it's quite clear when you are looking at it from like the perspective of us who really is putting their money where their mouth is. It is very true that the budget, right? Where the money goes shows what you really care about. And I could not agree more and I know that I've written about this before about how can even when we talk about diversity, equity and inclusion, how can we move to shift the onus away from the people of color to the organizations to solve this issue, the systemic issues, having these leaders talk about and think about how can we dismantle the systemic racism, the systems that exist before we start recruiting a bunch of people of color? Like how can we clean up our own house? So I think that's a crucial message that so many leaders need to need to know. Erin, I'd love for you to talk to us a little bit about the JOC Slack, right? We refer to it a few times. The start is a community space for journals of color. I was a member when I was, when I was bringing in the New York Times and remain one. It's something I go to and look at quite often almost daily. So it's definitely been a valuable resource for me, but I'd love to hear you talk about that and how that community has shifted over time. Absolutely. Well, thanks for being a member and staying engaged. Yeah, so it was started roughly five years ago by myself and Julia B. Chan, who's a digital managing editor at KQED in San Francisco. We were two journalists at CIR over in the Bay Area. And we just kind of felt like, even within that space, which felt like, had a fairly at the time diverse staff and felt like we could really talk about issues of race and working as a journalist. We knew that off of the conversations her and I would have kind of like after work, whether that was like over a coffee or drinks or dinner, there could be a better space to do this to folks who maybe don't work in newsrooms that have other POC journalists there. I mean, I think if you talk to any working journalist of color, we can probably speak to at least one time where we were the only whatever in our newsroom and kind of the isolation that came with that. And so we thought, well, and at the time, Slack was kind of this new hip thing to use. And so we thought, hey, why don't we, you know, establish a space like this? So these conversations that tend to happen, you know, either at lunch or after hours we can kind of have for folks who maybe don't have the built-in network that we had kind of established in our careers early on. And so that's really how it morphed. It really kind of became, initially it was just a space to kind of just air grievances or to talk about stuff totally unrelated to journalism like what you cook this weekend or what you were watching on Netflix or on Hulu or whatever, right? But what has been interesting is that the group has now morphed from a rough, a roughly kind of small cohort of journalists across, you know, mostly first starting in the West Coast and then moving to the East Coast and kind of broadly around the country to now an over 2,000 plus group of people worldwide. And beyond that, it has now extended to not just being like a community or collective of people who could air grievances, but it has now become an active space for organizing. So, you know, during the huge Los Angeles Times, Black and LAT movement, we got a lot of members of the Los Angeles Times Guild into our group, you know? And it's now really kind of become this an interesting political space, which is something that like when we started it was not the intent. Again, it was kind of meant to just be an organization. And like even though I'm a co-founder, you know, I'm literally one of 2,000 plus people in that group. Like there is no kind of mission statement. We, you know, we don't collect any money on for the rest of the group. It kind of just operates on its own, but it has now become, it has moved beyond a space of just, you know, friends hanging out and chatting to a space of actual organizing and dedicated study in the criticism and media, which is now kind of interesting in this moment. I think that's something that we as the admins of the organization are trying to wrestle with. And like it's a good thing to wrestle with, which is like, how can this space be moved beyond just the kind of like cool, safe space to talk, but like, is there more work we can do to embolden? And can we, you know, going back to this idea of power, like there's a lot of power in this group now that did not exist when it started. And so the question is how can we build that responsibly? How can we use that power as a collective to do something good for our organization? And these are just ongoing discussions, but that's kind of where it's at now. We're in this really kind of interesting time where we've, you know, where we can now actually think about, we used to just be a group of, you know, kids, I felt like, you know, adults, but, you know, kids like just like talking whatever online. And now we're really just a big group of people with a lot of opinions and who have moved into different spaces in our careers. A lot of new managing editors and folks who actually will power in these rooms. So it's really exciting to see, but it's a very daunting task. And that I think is what the biggest shift has been over the last year. Well, I think it's been one of the most important sort of platforms, places for journalists of color that have just emerged in the last couple of years. So I really salute you and your co-founders and the admins and the people that keep it all going. I think it's what you've done is just really amazing. So Michelle, as president of AJ, right? What I would consider one of the more established groups, right? You have NABJ, NHJ, NAJA and the others. So how is AJ handling this moment of reckoning, right? And one thing that I and so many others have seen is just the number of incidents directed toward Asian-Americans in the sort of age of COVID, as well as the washing the mistakes, right? That news organizations have made around this, early on for stories around coronavirus, they were illustrating it with like static images of Chinatown unacceptable, right? And I know AJ really stepped up and became a voice and a force during that time. So how is the organization really handling this moment? Yeah, it has been a crazy year for all of us, of course. And I'm also a member of the JLC Slack. So I'm with you and I really love the community that Erin and Julia have created. And I think it's really great and something we so really needed. You know, it's been a tough year to be Asian and Asian-American and an Asian-American journalist. And that's really changed a lot of ways that AJ has functioned this year. You know, we really thought this was gonna be a banner year focused on the 2020 elections and that all of our work was gonna be around civic engagement with the election. But early on when the pandemic hit and the fact that it originated from Wuhan and the way it was really impacting media coverage and the way our members were being affected really had us shift our focus quickly. We came out really early in February because we have a really vibrant Asia chapter and they started monitoring issues and flagging things for us quite early on. So we came out with guidelines in February for media outlets and their coverage on things to avoid, the best practices and kind of highlighting these issues. And since then, you know, our members have based everything from racism on the job to racism in their communities, people who are afraid to wear a mask and walk outside because they legitimately faced threats of physical violence just because of who they are and what they look like. And you know, for us, we wanted to make sure we're supporting our community, highlighting these issues and making sure it's being covered by media outlets and being almost like an emotional and professional support group for all of our members because on top of this, they were also losing out on jobs. They were getting furloughed. They were getting really worried about their finances. We have so many students graduating into a pandemic and no real graduation, early career journalists losing out on fellowship opportunities. I mean, the pain was really real. So we quickly shifted to becoming a support network and making sure there are virtual opportunities for professional engagement and development, which is why we made sure that even though our in-person convention was canceled out of health concerns, that we created a virtual convention which is gonna take place starting this weekend. So we really shifted and I think that this pandemic has really made our community much more aware of the inequality that already existed and made us talk about it more. So when the Black Lives Matter movement, the new efforts around it came about this year, I think our journalists were in a really good place to listen and really pay attention to those issues and look inward about where the AAPI community has been in relation to Black activism. So something that I found really interesting and that we elevated at the national level at AJA is we heard a lot of our Asian-American members talking about the history of anti-Black racism within the Asian-American community, which we all kind of know existed, but there was a degree to which our members focused on talking about this and forced each other to recognize it and talk about it and write about it really was new from the years that I've monitored our membership's response to this type of issue. So we've tapped into that, as an organization said, AJA and our AAPI community need to recognize our own faults within our community and how we may have contributed to the systemic inequality and how we need to own up to it. So we have developed more allyship-focused programming around these conversations. We similarly have been helping our members unionize and organize within newsrooms and share best practices, as well as be a resource for managers as an organization for us. So we're kind of straddling both of those lines where we wanna help the workers, but we also are a resource for the managers and executives. So we're trying to walk that line and kind of like what Erin said, unionizing and organizing, this is kind of new to us too in this space. You know, that's always been something that employees and journalists of color have really focused on and talked about, but the concerted effort to work across newsrooms to help each other organize informally or formally, there is just like a really huge push now. So we're trying to shift to make sure that we're the best resource for our members and their work in doing that. That's excellent, that is so excellent. And I really just want to push again, AHA's conference is starting soon. I've seen the lineup, it's amazing, really great programming for anyone and everyone, right? So yeah, and this year, especially around the idea of allyship, we got rid of membership requirements to sign up for convention. We wanted to make it affordable to all journalists whether or not they're in AHA or not. So we stopped distinguishing member rates versus non-member rates because we wanted to make it open. And it's little things like that that we hope brings about greater changes. I know it's just the membership rate, but it starts somewhere, you know? No, that's excellent. So to this point of allyship, right? So once upon a time, there was Unity, right? Which was the umbrella organization for the Black, Latino, Asian and Native American journalist associations. That dissolved years ago, right? And other groups have stepped up and provided more inclusive spaces for collaboration, JOC Slack, online news association, open news. These are examples of groups that sort of outside of that more traditional framework that I think have really stepped up and provided these really inclusive networks and places for people to gather. What do you see as a good opportunities for a newer model or better collaboration across to even do more with the allyship? Yeah, I think that's a really good question. I mean, I think the one thing that the JOC community, the one thing that we as like the admin group have talked a lot about is we've heard interest both within the group itself and outside to basically be a Unity 2.0. And, you know, while I'm only speaking for myself and not the greater community, you know, I have personally kind of pushed back against that, not because I don't believe in the idea, but because what kind of makes JOC work is that it's kind of the fact that it is kind of a, in some ways, decentralized kind of flat group. You know, the fact that kind of, you know, as long as you identify as a working journalist of color, you can come in, we don't police any kind of the kind of structure of the group, most to the point of just like, don't be mean. But, you know, other than that, the group kind of operates on its own. And so, but like to my point earlier about power and like how we can wield that, you know, we have had this question of like, how do we create maybe a better space for cross affinity group allyship? And I think it's really important. I think the way I see it within JOC is, you know, by allowing all these, all bunch of different working journalists from a wide array of backgrounds to come together, hopefully out of that can build something that's more equitable or more that kind of thinks about what this allyship in multi-ethnic, multi-cross-generational kind of coalition could look like. I personally just feel like us building like unity 2.0 would be difficult because, well, one, that's like another job. And again, I'm trying to keep the number of jobs I have to do down. But like I've been personally really inspired by things like the AAJA's executive leadership program, right? That has had, you know, non-AAPI journalists join the group. You know, as long as you're an AAJA member, right? And I think that those kind of specific kind of targeted fellowships are like a really great way to kind of build that allyship. So yeah, I'm curious to show what you think. Yeah, you know, there's still such a very political overtone when it comes to unity. That word is just very divisive still among a lot of people. And even though it dissolved years ago, it remains a very big point of tension because from a membership and broader journals and community level, it makes sense for Black, Brown and Asian journalists to work together, obviously, in a formal way. Why not continue that? And it makes things easier for funders and sponsors because they have to just go to one convention. It makes things easier for members from their perspective because they only have to go to one and they see the power in numbers. And I completely recognize that, understand that. And I think that building on these efforts that have developed post-unity dissolving, kind of like what the JLC Slack is doing and various programs just becoming more inclusive is the right path to finding something perhaps more stable and more formal. Even though the national unity dissolved are chapters, AJ chapters and AJ affinity groups, which are members who are banded around common career interests rather than geographic connections, those connections at the more local levels remain really strong and in fact have gotten even stronger in the absence of a national unity. So in the DC chapter of AJ, for example, we've been hosting a job fair with the local NABJ, HJ, NAJA and LGJ chapters for many years now. And this has continued. So in our local area, we have continued to build on these relationships, host events together, host job fairs together to keep that relationship going. And then for example, our sports task force at AJ, there's a sports task force at NABJ and HJ as well and they really work together a lot and they learn from each other. And these local relationships really, I think are keeping our broader network together and continuing to build on each other. And I think the more that those efforts continue, it will then help us come up with a more formal and maybe more infrastructure based support around the local efforts. But I think that in this time, building on those connections that I've formed after unity is really what is rebuilding all of our larger journalists of color community. Okay, so we have some good questions from the audience and let me pull a few of these out for you. So, and I wanna direct this one to the both of you. I think this is a really, really excellent question. What is the best way for a white coworker who's not a manager, not in a manager position to help? This person says, I don't have hiring power, but I wanna help work on the issue within our newsroom. I think I will say, first of all, asking that question is a very good sign that you're a good ally. So who knows even thinking about that? Well, one thing I can mention specifically is I believe it's linked to on the JOC website. We have a resources guide through the bottom of the signup form with just assorted links to a bunch of different guys including like AJ style guide and among the resources. But one of the really good resources there is Moise Said out of ProPublica, Lambo Buzzfeed and Disha who she used to work at the Star Ledger. The three of them created this really fantastic JOC resource, but there's a huge part of that that goes into allyship. And Moise specifically, he's been doing a lot of work around how as a white ally you can, you know, impact, you know, or just use your privilege and you're standing to impact change and help your colleagues of color. So I'll make sure to circle that around, but certainly if you go to our website, we have like, that's like a very targeted specific way you can do that. And I think more generally, as Lashara said, you know, certainly speaking up, asking questions, listening, you know, that's always the best first step. And then, you know, obviously the folks who you're working with directly listening to what they think is most important, I think is always helpful. Yeah, I'm really grateful for this question. I've always like informally said that woke white men are our best allies. And you don't have to be in a position of power, just being a white person, especially being a white man, inherently gives you power. And just because you don't hold the title of a manager does not mean that you're powerless. And I think that for this question to really frame like how they could help is just really helpful. I can't tell you how many white male colleagues I have personally benefited from because they cared and cared about diversity. That's why I keep trying to say not just diverse journalists, but diversity minded journalists because I think we need both at all levels. In addition to what Aaron said, you know, there's huge power in being a white person who cares about this and talks about this to other white people. And I think when we talk about the burden and shifting of power, we can offload some of that burden onto you as a white colleague and a white male colleague, even if you don't hold a formal title of power, to kind of share this with us. Pitch the stories that you believe would be helpful for our communities. It's not just up to us to pitch it on our behalf, but for everyone to care about all of our communities. If you see issues that are being raised within newsrooms that you think some other journalists of color should be weighing in on, you should also know enough to weigh in on certain issues and learn up on those issues so that you can inject yourself into conversations in a productive way and try to help and show that you are an ally. And I think there are so many things you can do, whether you're in a meeting, whether you're pitching a story, whether you're in like at the water cooler, you know, talking with other colleagues, white colleagues talking to other white colleagues about matters. I think like starting those conversations on what people need to learn up on and what the areas of their opportunity to grow and learn, I think that's really powerful. That's happening a lot right now. And I would encourage that and also recognize that we are here again with the burden to help. That's excellent. So I have two questions. I'm just going to kind of fold into one. I'd love to hear all of you weigh in more on the cleaning up your own house point that Lashara raised beyond hiring, creating a workplace that works for journals of colors, that nurtures careers, that adequately addresses these microaggressions, just a little bit more on that. And I think connected is another question around, you know, what are the best and most constructive steps that you've seen newsroom executives take to advance the interests of genuinely improving DEI in the organizations that you're familiar with? I know, that's a tough one. That's a happy question. Yeah. I mean, I will say this about the cleaning up your house point that I made. I think that what's often missing in a lot of these DEI efforts is, there's a rush to create a plan. There's a rush to hire a bunch or the rush to do what looks good. And the step that seems to always be missing is the let us sit and acknowledge and explore and examine what are the ways in which we have failed, right? You can't solve a problem without acknowledging the problem. And I think that acknowledging the problem piece is what's often missing in, I would say 95% of any of these DEI efforts. I've ever seen the rush to a solution is not going to, seems like a path to nowhere, quite honestly. Yeah. I mean, I could pick a stab at it, maybe I'll develop more thoughts later, but I can tell you that something that I've found very helpful within my newsroom is that is having managers reach out to me personally and my colleagues, regardless of what their background is, to ask them for their feelings and thoughts during this moment and around this issue. And I've had people, managers call me just out of nowhere, which always kind of freaks me out because I'm like, what did I do? But they just wanted to talk and wanted to hear what I was feeling and thinking and how I think our organization is lacking and how we could improve. And that just those conversations, the outreach, the phone call, really just put me in a situation where I felt like I could be honest with my assessment. And a manager who is white, who is male, or any manager just reaching out to a colleague who they no care about this and has been thinking about this for a long time and coming from a position of just listening to process what you're thinking and feeling, I think is extremely powerful. And I think it's through these conversations that as employees we can start feeling hopeful that greater changes will come over a long period of time. And another thing that's been helpful for me as well is that I've had mentors and other managers reach out to me and kind of help me find resources about the history of inequity in journalism. So we've been sharing like old articles that have been circulated decades ago around this topic so that we can all come from a similar base of understanding of what came before us and how we can improve from here on. And for us to have a conversation around like how frustrated all of us are, whether you're white or what background you're from, how frustrated we all are about the fact that we have this conversation again, decades after they first started having this conversation. So having managers and other colleagues reach out to those like us who have been in this space for a long time to learn, share resources and just listen, those steps I think have been extremely productive from my perspective. Yeah, absolutely. I think the education step is crucial and also kind of the coming together to share like how folks are feeling. Like I agree with LaShara that there's often this rush to immediately set up roles. I mean, we saw that this year where like, several newsrooms including the Washington Post created roles around diversity and inclusion. There's a lot of reporting roles being focused around race and around policing. And any journalists of color can tell you that these things, again, these aren't new issues that suddenly arose in 2020. They've been here for centuries. And so I think that while it's very, why applaud organizations that are stepping up to do that, there definitely needs to be a moment first to recognize how did we even get to this moment? And so to Michelle's point, I certainly think that I've also had colleagues white and otherwise reached out to me, just not only ask how I'm feeling, but to kind of get like a real candid view of what's happening. And also understand that when they reached out to me, they made sure to acknowledge that I'm basically, they're re-litigating my trauma and that sucks that they have to do that too. But I mean, I've had colleagues, the amount of times I've talked about what it's like to be a black reporter in a newsroom now, it's actually really stunning because it's a moment that again, I've dealt with my entire career, but to have upper management reach out and actually talk to me is really, it's like really illuminating something that I hadn't ever experienced. A further, I think like concrete thing that can happen is as opposed specifically, we've had, and what we've seen this in other places too, is that your guild or your union, if you do have an organizing or collective bargaining unit, can be really effective at taking kind of these discussions that happen internally and kind of the, you know, the kind of like, you know, re-understanding of how do we get to this moment to then move further into actual actionable steps. The Washington Post Guild has done a pretty fantastic job in my opinion of not only listening to the feelings of the black colleagues of the newsroom as well as other groups, but it didn't have tried to put that into actual, actual actionable things that they're requesting from management. And so I certainly think being able to have some kind of group other that's a guild or any kind of just like collective group that's arguing on your behalf to be able to bring that directly to management is another great way of taking the conversations that happen, you know, with your managers and things like that, but then actually try to be like, how do we now take what's happening and actually translate that into change whether that's, you know, more transparency around the demographics of the organization and with the transparency around and how that translates into, say, positions to or past the management, salary, benefits, all of that, you know, that's where your guild can really have some power and taking the, you know, kind of the theoretical and turning it into actionable. Yeah, and just to add one more, especially speaking of the power of the guild, I think this is a good time for newsrooms and news executives to review the policies that are in place that affect journalists, especially journalists of color within their own newsrooms. Right now, there's a big reevaluating of our social media policy, which has already been discussed publicly and the ways that the existing policy has affected the ways that journalists of color or women journalists are able to express themselves publicly and the personality and the humanity that they bring to their jobs and how certain policies can affect them in hurtful ways. And so I think the guild could be a huge powerful presence in sort of pushing those policy reviews to the forefront and making sure that, you know, things like policy or social media policies or pay schedules or time off policies, how these internal procedures that have been in place for a long time may have contributed to the way journalists interact within their own organizations and how that could bring about greater equity and equality within the newsroom. So I think this is a good time to really think, do that sort of cleaning house and look at the policies that are in place and for the guilds to really hold the newsroom managers to account. Absolutely. Well, thank you, Erin. Thank you, Michelle. You both are doing really important work to lift up this cause of equity, internalism and as we've heard today, the hard work continues. Thank you so much. Thank you.