The thing is this: Newsroom leaders know exactly what’s needed to improve diversity and better serve the communities they should be serving. They just don’t do it. Instead, they hire POC at the lowest rungs of the company, pay them the least, and then refuse to promote them.

That’s not by accident. And when you try to advocate for yourself, you’re seen as difficult to work with—and you still don’t advance. They know when you need that paycheck and can’t go anywhere. That’s the gotcha. I just refuse to believe that people don’t know this. They do.

So, after all of this reckoning across the U.S., most newsroom leaders will just put everybody in more useless diversity trainings—wasting more time because the people who need to learn will tune out everything anyway—WHEN THEY COULD JUST PAY PEOPLE WHAT THEY SHOULD BE MAKING.

The answer has always been to hire (at all levels), pay, and promote. It’s a damn simple. And literally any plan that doesn’t surround that is B.S. Please keep your trainings and your statements. PAY US.