Black Journalists Are Still Fighting. Karen Attiah Just Won a Round.

Being a Black journalist means being prepared to fight one battle after another. 

In addition to pushing for fair and holistic coverage of our communities as part of the American story, we are often on the frontlines of internal and external efforts to push back against the forces we know disproportionately impact our people and our profession: shrinking newsrooms and mass layoffs, the creeping threat of artificial intelligence, fickle social media platforms, wishy-washy media oligarchs, and an administration openly hostile to the free press., 

Black journalists have always been at the forefront of the fight in another mission — advancing newsroom diversity. So when an arbitrator ordered this week that Karen Attiah, the former global opinion editor for the Washington Post and the newspaper’s last full-time Black woman opinion writer, should be rehired after she was fired over her social media posts about the assassination of conservative provocateur Charlie Kirk, it was a victory not only for Attiah, but for everyone fighting for diversity in newsrooms.

Black journalists understand, perhaps better than anyone, why it matters who gets to tell our stories. This decision matters because editors like Attiah help ensure our stories are assigned, produced, reported on and published.

Only a handful of Black men, like Leroy Chapman Jr. at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Andale Gross at the Kansas City Star, are leading large daily newspapers. Monica Richardson is the senior vice president of USA TODAY. Shawna Thomas and Averi Harper are political directors at MS NOW and ABC News, respectively. But there are no Black men or women serving as the top editor or news executive at any major national newsroom, a stark difference from the height of the so-called racial reckoning of the early 2020s.

And that difference is palpable. When Black journalists leave — or are pushed out of— journalism, the public’s right to know suffers and we are left with a less honest and accurate picture of who and where we are as a country. It is for this reason that Attiah has decided to return to The Washington Post (even as she waits to hear back from the newspaper about what that process would look like).

Her win also represents an important moment for collective action. Attiah was represented by the Washington-Baltimore News Guild and the Democracy Defenders Fund, which said the landmark victory confirms “that corporate media institutions cannot use retaliatory discipline to silence journalists who address uncomfortable truths.” 

It is also why organizations like the National Association of Black Journalists and the Washington Association of Black Journalists, of which Attiah is a member, lent their voices and offered her support. We are stronger together. But one does not need to be a Black journalist to care about what’s happening to Black journalists. We need your support now more than ever. 

In a statement, Attiah said that she hopes this win “sends a message to journalists and media institutions everywhere that freedom of expression is always worth fighting for.”

It also sends a message that newsroom diversity is worth fighting for, too. 

Haines is president of the National Association of Black Journalists and editor-at-large at The 19th. Lewis is president of the Washington Association of Black Journalists and deputy front page editor at HuffPost.