Business Publication Taken To Task For All-White Corporate Success Narratives [UPDATE]

AUSTIN, TX -- A pair of prominent communications professionals specializing in promoting diversity in civic affairs inclusion has taken the Austin Business Journal to task for a perceived lack of broad cultural representation on its pages.

What triggered their complaint is the business journal’s recent assemblage featuring half-a-dozen of “...among the most impressive 30-and-under businessmen and women in town.”

Each one making the final cut is Anglo, the minority advocates note. All but one is a woman, and she, too, is Caucasian.

The two diversity advocates, Mando Rayo and Monica Maldonado Williams, told Patch the list is no aberration but illustrative of historical neglect of minority business success stories in local media.

The two sent the journal a letter, helpfully including a list of successful Austin business people who happen to be ethnic minorities.

Both said they sent their list as a diversity primer of sorts that could serve as template for coverage that better reflects the community as a whole.

Along the way, Williams noted, the journal might even expand readership as it appeals to a wider base of consumers in including minorities in future coverage.

Rayo posted the rant on his Facebook page, Twitter account and the website of The New Philanthropists, a fledgling organization launched a couple of years ago to showcase minorities in business.

“Not to shame them, but to call attention to this issue,” Rayo said. “It’s all too common,” he said of historical neglect of minority business achievement -- not just at the journal, he contends, but among local media in general.

Reached late Wednesday, Austin Business Journal editor Colin Pope acknowledged the article in question lacked diversity. But he said it was only after the final compilation of “most impressive” business leaders was being compiled that his reporters realized there was a problem.

“Without a doubt, that article lacks diversity,” he said. “But I do hope none of this diminishes the great accomplishments of the six millennials we chose. It wasn’t until we put the big picture together that we realized the short list lacked diversity.”

He said it was to the credit of his reporters they didn’t ask list entrants about their race or ethnicity, but judged merely on merit. He added that minorities were considered as part of the mix, but were cut when not meeting the parameters of the published piece.

One of those submissions was “well over 30” while the other is running for public office and the candidate’s inclusion on the list might have inferred a political endorsement from the paper. He said there were other minorities that were considered, but those are the two that he recalls most vividly.

“There were plenty of other people other than Caucasians that were picked,” Pope assured. “Those are just the ones I know.”

Rayo noted the problem of scant coverage of minorities in general is exacerbated given Austin’s economic segregation -- an increasing entrenchment as the city diversifies, recently yielding the city the dubious distinction of being the most economically segregated metro area in the entire nation.

“That’s why we wrote it under that umbrella,” Rayo said of the diatribe, posted as an outgrowth discussion of The New Philanthropists forum.

“We love Austin,” Rayo, who owns the namesake Mando Rayo + Collective ad agency, said. “We believe in Austin, and want to make it better. But unless we speak up, it’s never going to change.”

The public airing of the complaint reached ABJ editors. Rayo said Will Anderson, the paper’s digital editor, reached out to him via Twitter.

“Thanks for reaching out on Twitter, Mando,” Anderson wrote. “I’d be interested to hear any recommendations you have.”

Rayo said the editor acknowledged the paper’s staffers, too, had concerns as they assembled the list.

“If they had concerns, why did they publish such a homogenous list?” he asked rhetorically. As for the invitation to submit examples of minority achievement: “Now they’re asking me to do their job; I thought that was their job.”

For his part, Pope said the gentle critique has alerted him to the need of including diverse voices, although that’s what the paper generally accomplishes.

“It does make us go back and make sure we’re doing things right,” he said. ”It’s easy to look at one article and say that it lacked this or lacked that,” he said. “But you’ve got to evaluate the full scope of the the Austin Business Journal.”

Accompanying their critique, Rayo and Williams provided the ABJ with a sampling of business success stories viewed through their lens:

• Virginia Cumberbatch, co-founder of HUX Brand;
• Joah Sparman, co-founder and CEO of Localeur;
• Tony Aguilar, co-founder/CEO of Student Loan Genius;
• Yvette Ruiz, vice president, community relations manager for the Office of Nonprofit Engagement at JP Morgan Chase;
• Llyas Salaud-Din, Director of Major Gifts at LifeWorks;
• Mokshika Sharma, CEO/co-founder of Tastegraphy & Thisistasty;
• Paulina Artieda, creative strategist at Mercury Mambo and Mando + Rayo Collective.

Williams echoed the sentiments of disenfranchisement. She added it was counterintuitive for a publication to neglect a wide swath of the population that could potentially yield them more readers.

“It’s really important for a number of reasons,” the communications professional said. “Journalistically, it’s important for a media company that is responsible for covering the entire community to reach a little further and genuinely seek out people and stories from the entire community.”

She repudiated the inference that the “most impressive” representatives of the business community are, to a person, Caucasian.

“It is not true that 100 percent of the most impressive professionals are white,” she said. “That’s just not true. Even if they don’t feel social responsibility to reflect in their reporting the true diversity of Austin, they do have responsibility for the truth.”

“It’s a very shortsighted approach,” she said of a sole focus on Caucasian success stories.

Like Rayo, she, too, expressed a measure of civic pride: “Austin is wonderful and I love Austin, but we are struggling with those economic gaps that threaten to divide us even further.”

Pope agreed a news outlet should be reflective of its audience. As evidence, he pointed to a planned ABJ special publication focusing on the LGBT community.

“We cover successful people, and they come in all shapes and colors,” he said. “So it works out.”