The Inbox....

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As FTVLive continues to shine a light on the lack of diversity in many TV markets, our inbox is filling up with mail from people in the industry.

I’ll share a portion of two emails that I received yesterday:

Email 1:

Big up, as they say, for highlighting diversity and lack thereof in the industry. …I appreciate your highlighting the disparity in newsrooms across the Country. 

Email 2:

Keep it up.  You’ll help Trump get re-elected for sure.  You should just post that all white people should be fired and that blacks should rule the world.  After all, they represent 13 percent of the population and 70 percent of the prison population.  And it must be whitey’s fault.

As you can see, my email is all over the board.

Also, I will continue to look at the problems of racial and gender inequity in this industry, just like I have been doing for years and years.

I am not saying that TV news should get rid of all white men. What I am saying is that as jobs come open, stations need to look at hiring minorities. Let me point out something. If you have a black talent on staff and they leave for a new gig what happens?

The station replaces that person with another minority. It’s like that job is reserved for a black person. But, when I white talent leaves, they are almost always replaced by another white person.

It happens time and time again. So, if there are two black people on staff, it’s almost like that is all there will ever be. Because the only way a black person is hired, is after a black person leaves.

Next time a white person leaves the station, let’s hope the boss looks at everyone before filling the job and maybe adds another person of color to the staff.

It’s not hard, but you need to focus on the issue and not looking like we have filled our black quota, so we’re good.

This can apply to hispanic, asian and other races as well.

Just start making the change that is needed.