Terrence James has been a photojournalist at the Chicago Tribune for 31 years. He has covered news of the Chicago Bulls, the Cubs, student walkouts at Chicago Public Schools, protests of the Israel-Hamas war and breaking stories in Bronzeville.
But during his three decades at the Tribune, James, the only Black photographer at the newspaper, has received just one “significant” pay raise, according to a recent class action pay discrimination lawsuit filed by seven Black women journalists.
The seven journalists are representing more than 50 other women and Black employees of the newspaper, who allege pay disparities among themselves and their white counterparts at the newspaper.
Filed May 17 in the U.S. District Court of Northern Illinois, the plaintiffs are represented by Chicago-based law firm KJC Law Group and Michael Morrison of Alexander Morrison + Fehr, a California-based law firm.
Chicago Tribune, Alden Global Capital and Tribune Publishing Co. are named as defendants in the suit.
The lawsuit reflects a long history of alleged pay discrimination problems among Black and minority journalists working at daily newspapers, where newsrooms for over a century have been predominately white, including their top editors.
The pay discrimination lawsuit by seven journalists from the Chicago Tribune is reminiscent of the Washington Post’s “Metro 7.” They are a group of Black journalists who sued the venerable newspaper for similar reasons in a groundbreaking complaint more than 50 years ago.
The latest lawsuit against the Chicago Tribune adds another chapter to complaints in major newsrooms where Black journalists have long complained of feeling devalued and unable to obtain promotions and respect on the level of their white colleagues.
Underpaid and tired of hostile working conditions, Black journalists are leaving newspapers for other opportunities as they remain under-represented in print publications where staff does not reflect ethnic populations in cities they serve.
From the Los Angeles Times to the Washington Post, big city newspapers in recent years have made the news for the wrong reasons. Decades of complaints of discrimination and racism are forcing big newspapers to address the issues of Black journalists who have long been ignored.
At the Chicago Tribune, seven journalists allege systematic pay disparities between female and male employees, as well as between Black and white employees, under the current ownership of Alden Global Capital and dating back to the paper’s previous owner, the Tribune Publishing Co.
Plaintiffs in the lawsuit in addition to James, include Deanese Williams, a senior deputy content editor and Darcel Rockett, a features reporter. The other journalists are Madeline Buckley, a criminal justice reporter, Stacey Wescott, a visual journalist, Colleen Kujawa, an editor, and Christy Gutowski, a criminal justice reporter.
According to the lawsuit, “One thing remains consistent across each section of the Chicago Tribune’s news operation — women and African American employees are underpaid by several thousands of dollars a year compared to their male and white counterparts. No legitimate factors account for the enormous, statistically significant pay gap that the Tribune has created and intentionally maintains.”
Founded in 1847, the Chicago Tribune historically has been regarded as the city’s newspaper of record. The favorite among the city’s elite, the Tribune for decades has been criticized for its coverage of Chicago’s Black community and for its lack of Black reporters on its staff.
When the newspaper’s Black columnist Dahleen Glanton accepted a buyout in 2021 after 31 years at the Tribune, she left the conservative-leaning publication, whose staff was mostly white in a city where the Black population was 29 percent.
In this lawsuit, Williams said since 2007, she has received three raises since being hired through a diversity recruitment program. According to the lawsuit, Williams has received multiple Illinois Press Association and other awards, and has been honored by the Tribune for her “outstanding professional performance.”
According to the lawsuit, despite being promoted several times, Williams as deputy senior content editor, is the second-lowest paid employee with that title. She makes a mere $2,000 more than a 24-year-old early career editor, the lawsuit states.
James, the Tribune’s only Black photojournalist, who has earned only one “significant” pay raise in his 31 years working at the Tribune, earns less money than non-African American employees who perform similar work, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit also alleges the Tribune has “intentionally” hired minority journalists to fill positions at its six daily suburban publications, which pay even less than the Chicago newspaper.
The Tribune is not the only newspaper that has been accused of pay discrimination by Black journalists.
Last June, the Los Angeles Times quickly settled a class-action lawsuit filed by six Black, Hispanic and female journalists who alleged longstanding discriminatory pay practices at the newspaper.
The complaint accused up to 100 defendants at the Times of discriminatory pay practices that are illegal under California law. The complaint cited episodes involving current and former editors.
That lawsuit said, “Despite the contributions of the entire newsroom to publish the daily paper, the Company’s bias in favor of white (non-Hispanic) and/or male employees has resulted in unlawful pay gaps in the four- to five-figure range per year for many female and minority journalists.” Longevity for non-whites doesn’t seem to help, it adds.
The lead complainants included Black journalists Greg Braxton and Bettina Boxall, both of whom joined the newspaper in the 1980s. Braxton, who covers television, contributed to Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage at the LA Times. Boxall is a leading environmental writer. The journalists allege they earn far less than white and male peers with less experience.
Another plaintiff, Angel Jennings, was the LA Times’ only Black reporter on the paper’s 88-person metro desk, its largest news team.
According to NPR, then-LA Times Executive Editor Norman Pearlstine initially rejected pleas from the newspaper’s city editor to raise Jennings’ pay from a “shameful” salary. Pearlstine later told NPR some steps were ultimately taken to supplement Jennings’ compensation.
Pearlstine promised to do more to hire, promote, retain and develop Black journalists and to change the very culture at the paper. The newspaper also promised to release an annual diversity report on its newsroom every June.
In 1972, seven Black journalists who worked on the Washington Post’s metro desk filed a complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, believed to be the first of its kind in U.S. history.
Today, Ivan C. Brandon, LaBarbara A. Bowman, Leon Dash, Penny Mickelbury, Ronald A. Taylor, Richard Prince, and the late Michael B. Hodge, are known as the Metro 7 who broke barriers at one of the nation’s most prominent newspapers.
The group alleged that the Post denied Black employees equal job assignments and promotions to management positions.
The group said when they filed the complaint in 1972, 71.1 percent of the Washington, D.C. population was Black.
The complaint paved the way for better opportunities for Black journalists at the Post, but recent studies show opportunities in recent years have declined. Unlike the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Miami Herald, the Detroit Free Press and the Indianapolis Star, the Washington Post has never hired a Black executive editor to lead its newsroom.
In 2022 The Washington Post Newspaper Guild released a disturbing study that showed underpaid Black journalists leaving the newspaper in disproportionally high rates. Many grew tired of working for years for less money than their white counterparts.
From 2016 to 2021, The Post Newspaper Guild interviewed more than 30 journalists from the union’s Black Caucus. It found that in 2020, more than one in three Guild-eligible journalists who left the newsroom were Black, despite Black journalists making up just 9.2 percent of newsroom employees that year.
The report describes how Black journalists were underpaid, devalued, and blocked from promotions as they worked in a hostile work environment that included subordinates and editors second guessing their decisions.
Black employees said they were overlooked for merit raises and promotions, despite outperforming their colleagues; others said they were asked to take on menial tasks outside their roles, unlike their white colleagues. Some said they were stuck in undesirable shifts, and their ideas and work were being given to white colleagues.
According to The Guild, while median salaries for all employees are rising, disparities between white employees and employees of color persist, says the latest analysis.
In 2021, the median salary for white employees across the newsroom was $113,810, up from $102,880 in 2019, the year of the last Guild pay study. The median salary for Black employees was $102,700, an increase from $91,881 in 2019.
But the gap between median salaries for white and Black newsroom employees — just over $11,000 — was even larger than the one exposed in the 2019 pay study.
Multiple staffers said they received raises only after discovering their salaries were significantly lower than those of colleagues with comparable jobs, and initiating conversations with their managers.
The Guild said although the Post awards raises based on performance evaluations, those raises are not allocated equitably. White people, who make up 67 percent of the newsroom, received 76 percent of raises from 2015 to 2021. The average raise for a white employee was $3,080, according to The Guild.
Meanwhile, Black employees — 9 percent of the newsroom — earned 9 percent of raises. But the average raise for a Black person was just $2,500.
Further analysis by The Guild showed merit raises disproportionately benefit white men, who make up 35 percent of the newsroom but received 43 percent of merit raises. White women, 32 percent of the newsroom, received 33 percent of merit raises.
Black men received 4 percent of merit raises and make up 4 percent of the newsroom. Black women earned 5 percent of the raises, while making up 5 percent of the newsroom.
One Black Post reporter said he went years without a merit pay increase, despite consistently outperforming his colleagues, and he said the company failed to adequately award and appreciate work by and about people of color.
According to The Guild, one former Black Post journalist who worked the evening and overnight shifts said she only received one merit raise during the four years she spent at the company, despite having a decade of experience.
That reporter was reportedly one of the most productive writers in her section who consistently received positive feedback from managers. The Black reporter received a merit raise only after she compared salaries with more junior colleagues who were hired into similar roles.
According to The Guild, she was no longer working for the company when the 2019 pay study was published and was surprised to learn that she had been making about $30,000 less than the median salary for white women in the newsroom.
According to The Guild, another Black veteran reporter said he went a decade without receiving a merit raise, despite maintaining a consistent presence on the front page. “It’s not a stretch to say I had more front-page bylines for enterprise stories than most reporters,” he said. “But it wasn’t until recently that my work was rewarded with merit pay increases.”
One Black staffer started as a contractor by writing for various Post editorial sections for several years in hopes of landing a reporting job. According to The Guild, when she was finally hired as a reporter, she was told to take on several duties typically handled by employees in a lower-level position.
Also, according to The Guild, when she became a staffer, the reporter learned she was making well below the median for newsroom salaries among staffers in her age group, despite being one of the most productive reporters in her section. She finally received a merit raise in 2020, but a salary review revealed she still made thousands of dollars less than the median for her peer group (determined by HR and her managers) and staffers with a similar level of experience.
Another Black female journalist who was hired full time in 2014 has since left the company. Despite her 10 years of experience in newsrooms, she was asked to perform low-level tasks and assigned to the night shift with few pathways for moving to her preferred daytime schedule, according to The Guild.
“I often felt that I was disproportionately asked to fetch court documents and run errands for colleagues on stories I was not even reporting on, and when I could have been working on pieces from my own story idea list,” she said. “During my four years at the Post, I never held a permanent daytime reporting position downtown.”
