Wednesday 23rd August: Why diversity, equity and inclusion is an everyone issue

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If you haven’t read Peter’s very own magazine the Grub Street Journal yet, you’re missing out. It’s an always thoughtful, often funny look at the business and practice of making magazines. In this article, kindly republished from GSJ, co-founder of Coaches of Colour and DEI consultancy Project 23 Gary Rayneau turns his eye on the diversity of the UK media — or rather the lack of it:

“If you’re a woman of colour working for News UK, or The Sun in particular, how does that sit with you? There is a very visible DEI team at News UK, championed by leadership that is trying to improve things, yet some of the content from these brands, which is read by and influences millions, systematically undermines these efforts.”

It echoes a lot of what I’ve heard about and spoken about with other people in media, even those who work in junior positions at News UK or The Telegraph etc. They personally may be well-meaning, but that gets lost when the top brass at those companies still think about diversity as a nice-to-have — or more likely don’t think about it at all. That said, it’s not just legacy outlets with a problem…

Delighted to see a new publication springing up, and I know Peter will be happy about the shade being thrown Shane Smith’s way in the article. My one concern here is that, despite 404 Media being a wonderful name, it takes a lot to stand out in tech journalism these days. It’s a saturated market and an uphill battle for awareness, even if your journalists already have a following.

Here’s an interesting one. Dominic Young has taken a look at The Telegraph’s subscription trajectory, noting that while a psychologically significant one million subscriber figure has been reached a lot of the legwork has been done by heavy discounting. That has since been disputed by Telegraph Media Group CEO Nick Hugh, and the conversation that followed is interesting and illuminating in its own right.

This won’t move the needle even a little bit on “““X”””’s lack of direct relevance for publishers. It was always a very limited source of traffic anyway. But what this speaks to is a lack of consideration of how Twitter interacts with the wider internet, and what people want from the platform. Small wonder it’s falling off the app charts.

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