The mayor of Chicago selects only minority journalists for interviews

New York | Democratic Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot voluntarily selected minority journalists to be interviewed face-to-face on his second election anniversary, a controversial decision justified by the lack of diversity among the reporters covering City Hall.

The 58-year-old former lawyer, in a letter sent to journalists from the local press and reported by many American media outlets, stated that she wanted to “get out of the status quo.”

“Since the first day of my campaign in 2018, I have been amazed by the extremely dominant proportion of white and male people in the Chicago media, editorial directors, political journalists and those who cover City Hall in particular,” the city wrote.

“It is a shame that in 2021, the journalists accredited to the city council were overwhelmingly white in a city with more than half of its population black, Hispanic, Asian or Native American,” she wrote on Twitter.

The ad sparked a wave of criticism, more or less ferocious.

The National Association of Black Journalists praised Ms. Lightfoot’s “sensitivity” to “the lack of diversity among those who cover local communities,” but said she “cannot support this tactic,” “because of our commitment to diversity in general, equality and inclusion.”

Hispanic journalist Gregory Pratt covers the mayor of the Chicago Tribune and was one of the reporters kept by Laurie Lightfoot. He announced on Twitter that he had conditioned this interview by lifting the condition imposed by the mayor.

Lowry Lightfoot’s government refused, and the reporter declined to interview. “Politicians don’t choose who to cover,” he wrote on Twitter.