So that megaphone for diversity, the St. Petersburg Times , has been called out by the NAACP. Someone finally noticed that there are more whites on the NAACP’s board of directors than there are blacks on the Times’. Actually there are no blacks at all on the Times’ board, and Andy Barnes, Times chairman and CEO, seems properly defensive.
Barnes, who selects the members of the board for Times Publishing Co., told Darryl Rouson, president of the St. Petersburg branch of the NAACP, that filling executive positions in the company with African-Americans is one of his highest priorities. “No one feels more frustrated about this than I,” said Barnes as quoted in a Times’ account.
Barnes, according to the Times, also told Rouson that he will work hard before he retires in 2004 to appoint an African-American to the board.
Still left unaddressed: a diversity-driven timetable for appointing a white, male conservative.