Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot confirmed on Wednesday that one-on-one interviews marking the two-year anniversary of her inauguration will only be given to journalists of color.
Lightfoot, who confirmed the decision in a statement and on social media, argued that Chicago news outlets are predominantly white, and as such, the coverage of her administration has been adversely affected. The confirmation followed a Tuesday tweet from NBC 5 political reporter Mary Ann Ahern that claimed Lightfoot was only granting interviews to “Black or Brown journalists.”
“By now, you may have heard the news that on the occasion of the two-year anniversary of my inauguration as Mayor of this great City, I will be exclusively providing one-on-one interviews with journalists of color,” the mayor said in a letter obtained by the Washington Examiner. “As a person of color, I have throughout my adult life done everything that I can to fight for diversity and inclusion in every institution that I have been a part of and being Mayor makes me uniquely situated to shine a spotlight on this most important issue.”
“I have been struck since my first day on the campaign trail back in 2018 by the overwhelming whiteness and maleness of Chicago media outlets, editorial boards, the political press corps, and yes, the City Hall press corps specifically,” she continued.
Lightfoot, 58, added that community leaders of color often reach out to her office to point out bias in media coverage.
“For the past two years, more often than not, we have debated internally, then chosen to say nothing, to let it go, lest we be accused of whining about negative coverage or of ‘playing the race card.’ And the truth is, it is too heavy a burden to bear, on top of all the other massive challenges our city faces in this moment, to also have to take on the labor of educating white, mostly male members of the news media about the perils and complexities of implicit bias. This isn’t my job. It shouldn’t be. I don’t have time for it,” she said.
The mayor concluded her letter with a challenge to the area’s news outlets to ask themselves questions about whether they were incorporating enough nonwhite journalists in their newsrooms.
“My team will always be responsive to your inquiries,” she said. “We will always be transparent. But if the answer to these questions is no, be advised that I will continue to press for that to change.”
While Chicago’s major news outlets have yet to address the issue publicly, at least two reporters have expressed their displeasure with the decision.
“I am a Latino reporter [the Chicago Tribune] whose interview request was granted for today,” journalist Gregory Pratt said in a Wednesday tweet. “However, I asked the mayor’s office to lift its condition on others and when they said no, we respectfully canceled. Politicians don’t get to choose who covers them.”
“I expressed my outrage. Nothing has changed,” Ahern told the Washington Examiner on Tuesday.
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Lightfoot was sworn in as Mayor on May 20, 2019. Her current term will end in 2023.
The Chicago chapters of the National Association of Black Journalists and the Asian American Journalists Association did not immediately respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
