Diversity Hire

Hello and welcome to the 29th episode of Diversity Hire.

Today's guest was Isabelia Herrera (Pitchfork, Remezcla, MoMA PS1 Warm Up). We talked about explaining facets of one’s culture to a dumb Anglo-American audience, toxic media workplaces, why Latinx and POC are similarly toothless terms, and Kevin’s attempt to DJ at the next edition of Warm Up. Arjun and Kevin also talk about the pay transparency discourse and living in New York when you make NO MONEY. Thanks for listening!

* Arjun & Kevin talk about starting salaries (0:00)

* Isabelia calls in from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic (9:04)

* Isabelia leads us through her career timeline (10:29)

* We talk about Isabelia’s experience at Remezcla, an outlet that came under fire last year for having a toxic work environment (re: “'He Broke Me': Inside the Toxic Workplace at Groundbreaking Latinx Culture Site Remezcla”, Emily Alford, Jezebel, 2020) (13:48)

* What does Isabelia make of terms like Latinx and Latinidad (19:44)

* Why do white people hire people of color to explain to them why they’re racist? (“How Much of the New American Songbook Will Be Sung in Spanish?,” Slate, 2018) (29:56)

* How are perspectives changing with regard to colorism in criticism? (re: “An Introduction to Urbano in 50 Songs,” Pitchfork, 2020) (37:47)

* What’s it like to be one of Forbes’ 30 under 30? (41:57)

* What’s it like to help curate MoMA PS1 Warm Up? (45:24)

* Arjun’s Feelings Don’t Care About Facts Corner (50:00)

* The Diversity Tribunal (53:43)

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit diversityhire.substack.com

Hello and welcome to episode 28 of Diversity Hire. Today’s guest is Iva Dixit, who is the audience editor of the New York Times Magazine. Previously she has held positions at The New Yorker, Newsweek, and the Economist. We talked about being an immigrant in the media, the reasons why most social media departments are filled with women and people of color, how the nerd culture mindset has infiltrated the antiracist discourse, becoming a grown-up who buys antiques, and more. Also, Arjun and Iva wax about their dear alma matter, Columbia Journalism School, and Kevin gives us an update on his new apartment.

Stick around for the Diversity Tribunal, Iva dropped some bars. Also make sure to check out Iva’s latest article on Bollywood Wives, which was her first piece published in The New York Times Magazine.

Thanks for listening!

* Kevin talks about his brand spanking new apartment (0:00)

* Iva calls in from The New York Times building (suck on that Barbaro) (5:29)

* Iva leads us through her career timeline (7:56)

* Iva’s recaps her prolific 4-day tenure at Mic (11:26)

* Arjun and Iva talk about why Columbia Journalism School sucks (16:16)

* Iva talks about how social media professionals are treated in the newsroom (21:11)

* Iva’s jaw-dropping story about an unnamed editor at an unnamed publication (24:54)

* Why are most social media professionals women and people of color? (30:40)

* Being an immigrant journalist at the mercy of the whims of a hostile country (re: “Notes from a Sink-less Underground,” The Regular, 2020) (35:00)

* Kevin asks the corny American question :3 (39:30)

* Skin routines, and finding stability (re: “I Quit My Elaborate Skincare Routine,” The New York Times, 2020) (42:02)

* Arjun’s Feelings Don’t Care About Facts Corner (57:30)

* The Diversity Tribunal (51:55)

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit diversityhire.substack.com

Hello and welcome to episode 27 of Diversity Hire. Today's guest is Donnie Kwak who is the General Manager of Complex. We talked about how Donnie survived decades of many media pivots, music blogging in the early 2000s, why Asian American Twitter sucks, the vexed relationship ASAM folks have with other marginalized peoples, the plague of corniness, and much more. Kevin and Arjun also talk about the James Harden trade...and Kevin’s podcast listening habits.

Thanks for listening!

* Arjun & Kevin talk basketball and podcasts (0:00)

* Donnie Kwak on being Gen X (8:10)

* Donnie leads us through his career timeline (10:13)

* What does Donnie do as the GM of Complex? (19:08)

* What Donnie has learned from working through various forms of media (22:20)

* On giving Desus and Mero their first break (25:18)

* On representation and being a racial cheerleader (re: “‘Crazy Rich Asians,’ ‘To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before,’ and the Growing Pains of Representation,” The Ringer, 2018) (29:19)

* The lack of criticality in Asian America and Asian Twitter (32:13)

* The narrative hasn’t shifted (35:30)

* Donnie’s hypothetical book, Stop Being Asian (40:02)

* On 88Rising and the ways in which Asian Americans can profit off of Black culture while benefitting from white privilege (44:18)

* On the power of group chats (re: “The Internet’s Safest Space Is Group Chat,” The Ringer, 2017) (54:14)

* Against corniness (59:06)

* Arjun’s Feelings Don’t Care About Facts Corner (1:01:52)

* The Diversity Tribunal (1:12:02)

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit diversityhire.substack.com

Welcome to 2021 aka the 26th episode of Diversity Hire.

Today on this guestless episode, Kevin and Arjun talk about what the hell happened on Capital Hill yesterday, how the internet and the media working in concert destroyed discourse, why having an opinion sucks, why you should save all your thoughts for the group chat, and why, amidst it all, Kevin is having a good 2021 so far.

Thanks for listening! We’ll have a guest next week we promise.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit diversityhire.substack.com

Hello and welcome to the 25th episode of Diversity Hire: Our season 1 finale!! Today we talked to the wonderful Rachelle Hampton, who is a staff writer at Slate. Our conversation covered why you should appreciate your fact-checker, the psychic toll of being a diversity hire, Charlamagne Tha God and white America’s desire for one Black voice, the experience of being a Black journalist in the last decade, and much more. Kevin and Arjun meanwhile didn’t talk about much besides the snow day that just hit NYC.

We’ll be back in 2021. Thanks for listening!

* Arjun and Kevin talk about feeling hygge (0:00)

* We talk to Rachelle Hampton about her current work setup (8:15)

* Rachelle leads us through her career timeline (12:00)

* Having to meet traffic goals as a journalist (15:30)

* Rachelle talks about the sneaking question in the back of our minds: What if I’m just a diversity hire? (17:50)

* Rachelle explains how she put together a group chat of Black journalists for Slate (re: “White People Don’t Respond to Our Pain; They Respond to Theirs,” Slate, 2020) (24:03)

* How did Rachelle feel with regards to having to report on the same, unchanging Black tragedy in America (30:33)

* The way in which Black journalists have to be spokespeople for their entire race (35:22)

* Charlamagne Tha God and the ways in which white America have used the Breakfast Club to reach the Black audience (re: “The Voice of Black America?,” Slate, 2020) (39:07)

* How Rachelle developed her story about college debt (re: “Debt Nation,” Slate, 2020)

* Everyone should be a simp for their fact-checkers (49:28)

* We decide the fate of The New Republic (54:44)

* The way in which white journalists see the Black struggle in the newsroom as a “young person” issue (55:42)

* We talk about our favorite guy (1:01:45)

* Arjun’s Feelings Don’t Care About Facts Corner (1:06:15)

* The Diversity Tribunal (1:16:45)

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit diversityhire.substack.com

Hello and welcome to Episode 24. This is Arjun.

My head hurts. I feel like I’ve been in nonstop pain this entire year. Yes, it’s because of the pandemic, and we cannot forget the unmanageable political anxiety that continues to fester in Biden’s America. But on top of it all, the question that has prolonged this never-ending migraine is: How can I fix the lack of diversity in the media?

Over the course of this podcast’s existence, we’ve presented this mind-melting noggin noodler to some of the most talented journalists of color in the industry. There were many answers, but there seemed to be one overarching sentiment: this is a dumb question and we shouldn’t be wasting our guests’ time with it. But we begged them to humor us.

In this week’s episode, Kevin and I look back at the various outcomes of The Diversity Tribunal.

* Arjun and Kevin talk about the year’s end and New York’s death (0:00)

* The Diversity Tribunal (6:46)

* “People should leave.” -Jay Caspian Kang (7:55)

* “The media industry exists as an exploitative force.” -Maya Binyam (12:17)

* “We have to stop letting old institutions and bastions of corporate media be our gods.” -Jazmine Hughes (15:15)

* “Fire everybody. Cancel media.” -K. Austin Collins (17:35)

* “Random selection.” -Katie Way (18:07)

* “A lot of people need to quit their job and create space.” -Gabe Schneider (18:32)

* “Abolish legacy media.” -Lauren Kaori Gurley (18:49)

* “There needs to be more well paying entry-level jobs.” -Madeline Leung Coleman (19:45)

* “Disempower every white person at the top of a magazine and empower every young person at the bottom.” -Bijan Stephen (23:03)

* “Pay yourselves less, pay others better starting salaries, stop hiring people from fancy colleges.” -Gaby Del Valle (24:41)

* “Hire people who worked, who are poor, who experienced these platforms.” -Edward Ongweso Jr. (25:31)

* “Every publishing company has to have quotas.” -Rafia Zakaria (28:50)

* “Hire more non-white people. Quotas.” -Meher Ahmad (28:58)

* “I don’t know, guys. Does it matter?” -E. Tammy Kim (29:07)

* “I don’t believe in the media.” -Rahel Aima (30:11)

* “The only answer I can think of is to unionize and organize. That is the one sign of hope that I can see.” -Vinson Cunningham (31:35)

* “Above all, we need to take care of each other.” -Marie Solis (32:22)

* “The best way to diversity the media is to ensure more people can prop up a shop of their own” -Giri Nathan (36:44)

* “I just want to be a junior staff writer.” -Clio Chang (38:05)

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit diversityhire.substack.com

Hello and welcome to episode 23 of Diversity Hire.

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Today we talked to one of the best labor reporters in the game—Lauren Kaori Gurley. We talked about why labor reporting was once (and still is to some) an underappreciated beat, how race informs the way we talk about workplaces, her run-ins with the feds while reporting on meatpacking workers, why unions are GOOD, and much more. Thanks for listening!

* Arjun & Kevin talk about the upcoming layoff nightmare (0:00)

* Lauren Kaori Gurley guides us through her career timeline (6:09)

* Was journalism school helpful? (14:42)

* Why is the labor beat underappreciated and why it’s so important now (15:39)

* Why are we experiencing a labor journalism revival? (17:22)

* Lauren’s story about getting arrested at a hog farm (19:24)

* How monopolistic companies are incentivized to abuse workers (24:38)

* Is the labor beat going mainstream? (26:04)

* The depressing reality of reporting on Amazon (re: “Secret Amazon Reports Expose the Company’s Surveillance of Labor and Environmental Groups,” Motherboard, 2020) (27:55)

* How did Lauren develop her sourcing on her Amazon stories (30:32)

* What is the future of labor reporting under a Biden NLRB? (33:40)

* How corporations benefit from dividing workers through racist narratives (re: “Instacart Hacks and Bots Have Fueled a Racist Class War Among Shoppers,” Motherboard, 2020) (36:24)

* The fallacy of “freedom” for gig workers (39:45)

* What is the role of race in labor journalism? (43:01)

* The lack of media literacy when it comes to labor reporting (50:21)

* The reciprocal nature of labor reporting in an industry that often shows little respect for workers (52:40)

* The superficial complaints of journalism (56:15)

* What has been the response to Lauren’s piece about secret organizing (re: “How to Organize Your Workplace Without Getting Caught,” Motherboard, 2020) (57:00)

* Arjun’s Feelings Don’t Care About Facts Corner (58:50)

* The Diversity Tribunal (1:03:05)

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit diversityhire.substack.com

Hello and welcome to the twenty-second episode of Diversity Hire.

Today we talked to Rafia Zakaria, who is a lawyer, activist, and columnist for Dawn and the Baffler. This was a very spicy EP! We talked about white supremacy in second-wave feminism, “allies of whiteness” in the media and politics, Kamela Harris’ place in the diaspora, how Rafia writes for both audiences in Pakistan and in the states, and much more. Kevin and Arjun also talk about recent articles from friends of the pod - Jay Caspian Kang and Maya Binyam - which tangle with our favorite topics: POCs and DNI. Thanks for listening!

* Arjun & Kevin discuss recent articles by past guests (re: “‘People of Color’ Do Not Belong to the Democratic Party,” Jay Caspian Kang, The New York Times; “Diversity Work,” Maya Binyam, CJR) (0:00)

* Rafia Zakaria on submitting her manuscript for her upcoming book, Against White Feminism (15:45)

* Rafia leads us through her career timeline, from Pakistan to her law Ph.D. to becoming a fulltime writer (20:17)

* The legitimacy in media that is only granted to Western writers (28:25)

* How Rafia manages writing for a different audience, between Dawn, the oldest Pakistani newspaper, and Baffler, a publication read by guys named Connor (32:45)

* Bringing the discussion about the other to the other, especially when nonwhite people aren’t in control of their narrative (re: “The Pulitzer Problem,” The Baffler, 2020) (38:06)

* The hopeless state of whiteness (re: “The Allies of Whiteness,” The Baffler, 2020) (46:00)

* Has @NYRDaily reached out to Rafia after they blocked her for criticizing them? (53:00)

* How the altruistic mission of diversity is based on inherent racism (57:34)

* Is Kamala Harris an ally of whiteness? (1:03:45)

* The white supremacy of Western feminism (re: Against White Feminism, W. W. Norton, 2021) (1:10:57)

* Arjun’s Feelings Don’t Care About Facts Corner (1:18:39)

* The Diversity Tribunal (1:25:33)

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit diversityhire.substack.com

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Hello and welcome to episode 21 of Diversity Hire.

Today we talked to Gabe Schneider, the assistant managing editor Vote Beat and the co-founder of The Objective, a Substack newsletter that focuses on media criticism and covering communities ignored by mainstream journalism. We talked to Gabe about the Substack economy, what it was like to publish a rebuttal of the Harpers letter, what’s the deal with ‘open debaters’ who are deathly afraid of cancel culture, what it was like covering the presidential election, the sorry state of media criticism, and much more. Kevin and Arjun also talk about the latest corporate media merger, the NBA draft, and Kevin’s love of Mad Magazine.

Thanks for listening.

* Arjun and Kevin talk about media news (0:00)

* Gabe Schneider introduces us to his dog (10:02)

* Gabe talks about how he started a student-led campus blog (12:19)

* How Gabe became a Washington correspondent (15:44)

* What led Gabe to start The Objective (17:48)

* The response to the Harpers Letter (re: “A More Specific Letter on Justice and Open Debate,” The Objective, 2020) (20:16)

* On the “Open Debaters”: Fang, Greenwald, Stephens, Weiss, Williams, et al. (re: “How to erase Black journalists,” The Objective, 2020) (22:10)

* The Open Debaters’ move to Substack (24:50)

* Is anyone buying this “Substack is the savior of media” bullshit? (re: “The Substackerati,” Clio Chang, CJR, 2020) (27:20)

* When will the Substack business model burst? (30:12)

* What is the future of the Objective in a broken media industry? (32:00)

* The Open Debaters’ skewed view of objectivity (34:00)

* The wide latitude that tends to be offered to white journalists (re: “Re: About Your Tweet,” The Objective, 2020) (36:18)

* Negative responses about The Objective (38:17)

* The failings of diversity & inclusion (39:54)

* The business model of The Objective (41:14)

* On Vote Beat (42:15)

* On covering the elections as a Washington correspondent for MinnPost (44:16)

* Arjun’s Feelings Don’t Care About Facts Corner (47:15)

* The Diversity Tribunal (51:21)

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit diversityhire.substack.com

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Hello and welcome to our 20th episode of Diversity Hire.

Today's guest is tech writer and Vice/Motherboard staffer Edward Ongweso Jr. We talked to Edward about living a post-Prop 22 world, his winding path to the media which includes stops in labor organizing, politics, and other random gigs, the ways in which hollowness of diversity in the media overlaps with the tech industry, how to center tech reporting on workers, and much more.

Kevin and Arjun also talked about what they did the day Biden won. Thanks for listening!

* Arjun and Kevin on Biden’s America (0:00)

* Post-election chat with Edward Ongweso Jr. (5:30)

* Edward leads us through his career timeline (8:04)

* Edward explains why he has such a peripatetic career (10:11)

* How does Edward feel about the passing of Proposition 22 (re: “Proposition 22 Passes, But Uber and Lyft Are Only Delaying the Inevitable,” and “Proposition 22's Victory Shows How Uber and Lyft Break Democracy,” Vice, 2020) (13:05)

* The vexed nature of the Biden team and anti-trust regulations (17:12)

* How Edward’s background benefits his singular labor-focused voice in the tech reporting industry (22:16)

* Now that the ubiquity of tech clouds ethics, is the fight against giant tech corporations hopeless? (re: “Why We Should 'Abolish Silicon Valley',” and “What If Technology Belonged to the People?,” Vice, 2020) (25:07)

* By seeing the misery and suffering at the backbone of convenience, we may be able to alieve our unethical addiction to tech (29:19)

* Edward’s experience in reporting on exploited Uber drivers (re: “The Lockout: Why Uber Drivers in NYC Are Sleeping in Their Cars,” Vice, 2020) (31:33)

* Tech reporting’s obsession with founders instead of the workers (35:30)

* The disconnect of diversity when regarding tech workers; 2nd generation Desi diversity hires in high places exploiting their workforce of immigrant South Asians (39:50)

* The disgusting nature of tech wokeness (re: “Police and Big Tech Are Partners in Crime. We Need to Abolish Them Both,” Vice, 2020) (42:37)

* Will tech continue to foster the oppression of Black Americans under Biden? (45:38)

* What does it feel like, after years spent in politics and organizing, to be terminally online? (48:20)

* Does Edward like media people? (49:50)

* Arjun’s Feelings About Facts Corner (53:57)

* The Diversity Tribunal: Tech Edition (57:29)

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit diversityhire.substack.com