What is IDC?

WNET’s Inclusion and Diversity Council (IDC) is a staff-led group supporting WNET’s ongoing commitment to fostering a diverse workplace and a welcoming and respectful work environment. The Council recognizes and affirms that a diverse workplace fosters innovation and helps us to better serve WNET’s viewership in our programming and educational efforts. As an integral part of WNET’s ongoing and public commitment to the values of diversity and inclusion, the IDC is responsible for planning and executing diversity initiatives that assist WNET in achieving its diversity and inclusion goals, with the support of WNET's leadership.

Founded on the belief that a broad definition of diversity creates an inclusive culture, IDC’s definition of diversity considers many factors including race, gender, age, sexual orientation, disability, religion, national origin, educational background, parental status, political affiliation, and other intangibles such as ideas, procedures, and ways of doing things. IDC is open to all WNET staff members, both full and part-time, who may join at any time. With members representing different departments and experiences, the Council draws on the wide range of skills and talent within WNET to create and promote an equitable working environment.

IDC’s membership includes members from across WNET’s subsidiaries (THIRTEEN, IEG, WLIW, NJTV, CNG) and departments, including local and national production, news, legal, finance, education, station relations, design & on-air promotions, development, communications/marketing, IT and media & broadcast operations. IDC includes a Senior Management Liaison position that has, at various times, been held by Dan Greenberg (Chief Digital Officer) and Roslyn Davis (General Manager, THIRTEEN). The IDC has an annual budget ranging from $20,000- $30,000.

IDC does not rely on a static executive team, rather, the responsibility for facilitating IDC’s regular meetings and spearheading IDC’s projects is shared among its members, in order to foster project-ownership and develop leadership skills. The full IDC membership meets at least once per month. Working in committees, which meet as needed, IDC’s members develop and produce programs and initiatives aimed at achieving IDC’s objectives, within the overarching categories of: 

  • Actively recruiting and retaining a diverse workforce;

  • Promoting diverse and inclusive content production, acquisition and partnerships;

  • Fostering a safe working environment where all employees have opportunities to thrive, excel and advance commensurate with their personal goals and abilities; and

  • Developing a diversity plan with quantifiable goals and metrics that measure success.

Formation of the IDC:  Engaging WNET in Conversations about Diversity

IDC was formed in late 2015 by three WNET employees who wanted to promote discussion and action around issues of inclusion and diversity at WNET, including hiring and advancement, student outreach and fellowships, support for fellow BIPOC staff at WNET, and educational event programming. Initial members included approximately a dozen people from across the company along with a Senior Management Liaison, a role designed to function as an advocate for the IDC and to communicate on its behalf with Senior Management. The founders secured a yearly budget for the IDC from the Human Resources Department.

IDC’s initial committees produced livestreamed panel discussions and social gatherings intended to stimulate discussion and idea-exchange amongst WNET staff and a new-hire program to assist new WNET staff coming from a variety of backgrounds:

  • The Speaker Series Committee – A series of panel discussions open to all WNET staff designed to explore a range of identities, life experiences, and professional challenges and successes. The series aims to illuminate the stories of diverse individuals in their respective arts, media and entertainment fields while amplifying the paths they took to reach their goals.

  •  The Mixer Committee – A series of themed events that bring the WNET staff together to learn about and discuss topics of inclusion and diversity, as well as to socialize and celebrate non-religious holidays and events. The mixers are intended to aid in “silo-busting,” enabling WNET employees to create new connections across departments.

  •  The Workmate Committee – A program designed to pair every new hire with a “workmate” to make their transition to working at WNET productive and successful.

IDC’s speaker series kicked off in 2016 with the panel discussion “Telling Diverse Stories in Theater and Media” which featured Broadway actors from Hamilton and Spring Awakening. The series continued with five additional speaker panels throughout 2017-2019, with such topics as women in the news, African-Americans in media, Asian Americans in film, and more, until the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic this year. These panels proved wildly popular, packing WNET’s main boardroom, an overflow viewing room, and viewing stations in WNET’s kitchenettes throughout its offices. They were also transmitted via Facebook Live (see the List of IDC Projects for a full list of all of IDC’s Speaker Series events).

IDC’s “mixers” were also well attended, serving as a much-needed informal outlet for cross-department socialization and networking. Variously themed and timed to amplify WNET’s programming around national celebrations such as Black History Month, Hispanic Heritage Month and Pride Month, the mixers featured contests and presentations designed to stimulate cross-departmental cooperation and conversation in an informal and upbeat setting (see the List of IDC Projects for a full list of all of IDC’s Mixers). 

The Workmate program assisted new employees with their acclimation to WNET. New staff members were paired with employees from another department who could help them to petter understand resources available to them and be a friendly face to whom they could turn for questions and advice.

IDC New Initiatives: Changing the Culture at WNET

Following the successful launch of these initial ongoing projects to jump start conversations about diversity and inclusion in WNET’s industry, IDC introduced an  additional slate of initiatives focusing on the culture of WNET itself, including outreach to students to create a pipeline for minority media students to jobs in public media, as well as advocating for internal evaluation of WNET’s hiring and promotion practices, and its content, with the aim of creating benchmarks to aid in the development of WNET’s diversity and inclusion goals and planning: 

  • Minority Fellowships - In 2019, IDC spearheaded a new WNET minority fellowship program in collaboration with the Human Resources and Development departments. WNET partnered with the Emma Bowen Foundation to host fellows as part of its public media consortium, in addition to WNET’s existing Reginald F. Lewis Fellowship program. With the Bowen program, WNET was able to support nine paid fellowship positions in 2019. Fellows were supported by staff from the IDC and HR in addition to their assigned work team at WNET. The Fellowships were intended to remove barriers for diverse candidates and students without significant financial means - for whom an unpaid internship is an opportunity many young people cannot afford - to enter media fields to help ensure their voices and communities are better represented in the future. By offering paid internship opportunities to candidates of ethnically and socioeconomically diverse backgrounds, the expanded fellowships help close this access gap. During this process, the IDC significantly expanded the list of colleges, universities, and professional associations used by WNET when reaching out for internship and job opportunities. The group also worked with members of Development to approach longtime WNET trustee Grace Volckhausen with a request to provide the initial matching funds needed to participate in the Emma Bowen Fellowship program. The approach was successful and Volckhausen donated the requested funds, but also committed to funding three years of an additional minority fellowship program named after her foundation, Tiger Baron Foundation.

  • Diversity Consultant – In 2018-2019, IDC sought to hire a consultant to perform an audit of WNET’s diversity and inclusion practices in respect of its workforce and its content. The audit was intended to establish a baseline to develop programs and best practices, such as diversity and anti-bias training, better human resources outreach to diverse job candidates, and diversification of WNET’s programming to serve WNET’s diverse audiences across New York and New Jersey. Several consultants were interviewed by phone by members of IDC and Director of Human Resources, Charlene Shapiro. However, none of these consultants were hired by WNET’s Senior Management and IDC was told to remove the audit budget line from its yearly budget. In 2019, IDC was informed by Senior Management that Human Resources had hired a different firm, Jennifer Brown Consulting, to perform various undisclosed diversity work for WNET.

  •  CPB Employment Report Review – In 2019 the IDC reviewed WNET’s Employment Report to CPB, which provides an overview of staff diversity and employment initiatives. The IDC presented a number of questions and concerns to Human Resources about the reporting methodology accompanied by suggestions for standardizing metrics. The IDC also requested to work more closely with HR on outreach efforts such as Job Fairs and the distribution of job listings listed in the report. 

IDC in 2020: Confronting WNET’s Response to Racial Injustice

Following widespread protests after the police killing of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, many members of the WNET staff looked to the station for a response affirming the station’s support of racial justice and equality. The station’s public communications, via social media and over the air, initially remained silent on the subject,  then eventually released an offensive and tone deaf video on social media featuring police officers, to the dismay of many staff members. CEO Neal Shapiro hosted a company-wide meeting on June 4th in which he informed the staff that WNET, as a news organization, could not publicly state ‘Black Lives Matter,’ because it would be in violation of our journalistic integrity, and in which he touted WNET’s commitment to diversity by referring to diverse staff members as mere numbers – causing offense to WNET staff members. Disappointed, hurt, confused and angry, more than 120 members of the WNET staff attended an IDC meeting held the following day on June 5th to discuss reactions and possible actions. Following this meeting, WNET released a public statement regarding Black Lives Matter.

IDC meetings were then held on a near daily basis for the following several weeks during which time the group agreed that drafting a letter to Neal, and by extension Senior Management, to express the hurt and disappointment that WNET’s response to George Floyd’s death caused as well as address an ongoing culture of racial marginalization and mistreatment at WNET, was the best course of action.

On June 9th, the letter was sent to Neal and posted on a password-protected website. In the subsequent days and weeks, current staff members, former staff members and WNET partners went on to sign the letter. As of July 1, 312 people had signed the letter, including 150 (well over a third) of WNET’s current staff. Beyond expressing emotion, in an effort to spur concrete action, the letter requested to schedule ‘Town Hall’ meetings open to the entire company, that all of Senior Management would participate in, to discuss the staff’s personal experiences and to chart a way forward. IDC immediately got to work to formulate concrete action items that WNET could undertake to improve its culture in respect of diversity and inclusion. Working in committees, IDC formulated a comprehensive suite of action items in the areas of Human Resources, Communications, Content, Board Development, and Community Engagement.

The first Town Hall meeting, on June 22, consisted of staff members sharing personal stories of moments when they were mistreated or marginalized as a result of their race, gender, sexuality or neurodiversity. Over two hundred members of the staff attended the virtual meeting. It was an eye-opening and emotional event for most of the people who participated or attended – some of whom may not have directly experienced such treatment and were unaware it had been taking place.

At the second Town Hall meeting, on July 11, IDC presented the series of action items the committees had prepared.

Drafting the initial open letter, coordinating the stories shared at the first town hall and producing the action items presentation required hundreds of people-hours from staff across every area of the company, over nights and weekends. Dozens of conversations were had to determine the content of each aspect of the IDC’s efforts to address the issues of inequality at WNET. To date, Senior Management has not responded to these action items.

During this time, Executive Producer Eugenia Harvey was appointed Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer, taking members of the IDC by surprise. The IDC had long lobbied for a CDEIO position to be created and for the group to be tapped to consult in the hiring process. Despite this request, Harvey was hired without consultation with members of the IDC, or any comprehensive public search. In addition, Senior Management announced that it would continue to work with Jennifer Brown Consulting on various diversity initiatives, details of which have not been disclosed to staff.

The Future of IDC

On August 11, 2020, another staff-wide Meeting was held to share the results of a report produced by Jennifer Brown Consultants based on research conducted at WNET in 2019, prior to George Floyd’s death. The report concluded that the IDC was in need of a “relaunch” to better align with best practices for an organization of its type. No details were given as to what this meant for IDC, nor was IDC informed prior to the company-wide meeting that it would be re-formulated. It is unclear how Jennifer Brown Consulting came to this conclusion, since it has little to no knowledge of IDC’s structure or working practices WNET subsequently announced that it was disbanding IDC in favor of an “IDEA Council” with limited membership appointed by an anonymous panel. In addition, Harvey has prevented IDC from publicizing its meetings in the WNET newsletter, as has been customary for our organization, which prevents WNET staff from receiving information about IDC’s meetings and projects. Finally, the WNET Development Department recently drafted a request to reallocate the funds previously secured by IDC for the Tiger Baron Foundation and Emma Bowen Foundation fellowships to the content-specific portions of the new JBC-driven efforts. 

Although we do not know what the future holds, IDC remains dedicated to improving WNET’s culture to become a more inclusive, diverse and equitable institution for its workforce and a better resource for our diverse community of viewers. Above all, we remain committed to WNET’s mission to inspire, inform and educate our audience, with an understanding that our audience comprises richly diverse communities across New York and New Jersey in terms of culture, language, background, ethnicity, sexual orientation and gender identification - and more.  

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