In today’s digest is a story looking at the factors that push journalists of color out of the field as a “necessity, and not a choice,” as one reporter put it.

An abbreviated version of our media links is on our Instagram each week, focusing on what a handful of those stories say about how power and identity impact journalism. (Previous week’s here.)

—James Salanga

When Xintian Tina Wang left the newsroom in 2023, she didn’t yet see the full scope of what freelancing would entail.

“I knew freelancing would offer me flexibility to write more of the arts criticism I loved after spending years as one of the only writers of color in a legacy business newsroom,” she wrote. “It also offered some reprieve from the exhaustion of constantly having to justify stories about underrepresented communities to editors who often saw them as marginal, niche, or irrelevant.”

But then she faced the pressure of patching together income from $300 story rates that didn’t cover New York rent, editing college application essays, doing book publicity, and taking whatever adjacent work would keep her solvent. Eventually, she left journalism for full-time communications work in 2024.

“In hindsight,” she wrote, “my exit was part of a broader shift in the field.” Newsroom jobs have been shrinking for more than a decade, but the last few years have sharpened disparities among the most affected by industry instability, especially for journalists of color, who only represent 24% of the field as of 2022.

Read the full story.

⏱ FOLLOW-UP: After layoffs and pulled content, 60 Minutes host Scott Pelley became the latest story about the gutting of CBS News, now led by former opinion columnist Bari Weiss. Pelley was heard having a heated meeting with news management, and a day later was fired “for cause.” Pelley says that “new management” instructed him to “inject falsehoods and bias” into a story. This is after a number of big-name departures, including Sharyn Alfonsi and Anderson Cooper.

🌎 “Even among the general demise of journalism, climate reporting stands out as having been hit particularly hard,” Amy Westervelt writes for Drilled before laying out reasons why philanthropy has failed to shore up climate media. Among the latest cuts: NPR’s climate desk. Chief climate editor Neela Banerjee announced on LinkedIn she’d been laid off, and the department had been folded into NPR’s national desk.

👢 Less than two years after its launch, progressive Texas outlet, The Barbed Wire, is closing its doors June 1. Editor-in-chief Olivia Messer, said the newsroom “by Texans, for Texans” hit the end of its financial runway. Its two newsletter writers Kit O’Connell and Brian Gaar will continue to publish the newsletters, Big and Bright (on queer life in the state) and Wild Texas, respectively.

🔨 Ameer Al-Khatahtbeh didn’t see a localized source of Muslim-centered news. So he made one. WIRED interviewed the editor-in-chief of Muslim Media about what it’s been like covering international Muslim news across two Trump administrations and rising Islamophobia.

📺 Debbie Brockman, the WGN-TV producer who was thrown to the ground and detained during Operation Midway Blitz, is suing the U.S. government. Brockman was held for six hours without charges, and is seeking damages for assault and battery, false imprisonment, false arrest and for infliction of emotional distress. After her detainment, Brockman was laid off with eight other veteran reporters by Nexstar Media in anticipation of the Tegna merger.

🏛️ The Pentagon has designated its press office a classified space, banning journalists. Presumably, it is now just an office.

Have a story you think we should include in this section of next week’s newsletter? Let us know here or by responding to this email.

This issue is by James Salanga and Marlee Baldridge. Thanks for reading. We’ll have more for you next week.

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