The Washington Post’s Metro Seven (con’t)

richard

6 years ago

Members of the Washington Post Metro Seven reunite at the New York home of Clifford and Adele Alexander on Sept. 29, 2018. The Metro Seven were black Washington Post reporters who filed an EEOC complaint against the newspaper with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 1972. Cliff Alexander was the group’s lawyer. Penny Mickelbury was unable to be present; Michael B. Hodge died in 2017. < http://bit.ly/2w7ZE3n >. Story on the Metro Seven < http://bit.ly/2vODU8z > (Credit: Adele Alexander)

Also:

The Documents

The documents exchanged in 1972 as the young black reporters negotiated with management of the Washington Post over equal employment opportunity.

(Feb. 14 — Five-page response to Metro Seven questions)

There are no blacks yet in top editorial management positions because we have never known of a black candidate with the experience, record of past performance and ability to handle the job as we feel it should be handled. We do think we have blacks on the staff now who will be qualified soon.

(Ombudsman Ben Bagdikian gives the public [and many staffers] their first details about the reporters’ negotiations with management.)

first column: . . . Williams, Connolly and Califano, who also know their way around.

On February 28 the blacks issued their Affirmative Action Program which called for all major units in the Post newsroom to be from 35 to 45 percent black within one year.

Second column: There are all kinds of “qualified” characteristics in the bizarre business of journalism.

INSTITUTIONS have to be qualified, too. How qualified is a white institution like the . . .