Hello and welcome to Episode 24. This is Arjun.

My head hurts. I feel like I’ve been in nonstop pain this entire year. Yes, it’s because of the pandemic, and we cannot forget the unmanageable political anxiety that continues to fester in Biden’s America. But on top of it all, the question that has prolonged this never-ending migraine is: How can I fix the lack of diversity in the media?

Over the course of this podcast’s existence, we’ve presented this mind-melting noggin noodler to some of the most talented journalists of color in the industry. There were many answers, but there seemed to be one overarching sentiment: this is a dumb question and we shouldn’t be wasting our guests’ time with it. But we begged them to humor us.

In this week’s episode, Kevin and I look back at the various outcomes of The Diversity Tribunal.

* Arjun and Kevin talk about the year’s end and New York’s death (0:00)

* The Diversity Tribunal (6:46)

* “People should leave.” -Jay Caspian Kang (7:55)

* “The media industry exists as an exploitative force.” -Maya Binyam (12:17)

* “We have to stop letting old institutions and bastions of corporate media be our gods.” -Jazmine Hughes (15:15)

* “Fire everybody. Cancel media.” -K. Austin Collins (17:35)

* “Random selection.” -Katie Way (18:07)

* “A lot of people need to quit their job and create space.” -Gabe Schneider (18:32)

* “Abolish legacy media.” -Lauren Kaori Gurley (18:49)

* “There needs to be more well paying entry-level jobs.” -Madeline Leung Coleman (19:45)

* “Disempower every white person at the top of a magazine and empower every young person at the bottom.” -Bijan Stephen (23:03)

* “Pay yourselves less, pay others better starting salaries, stop hiring people from fancy colleges.” -Gaby Del Valle (24:41)

* “Hire people who worked, who are poor, who experienced these platforms.” -Edward Ongweso Jr. (25:31)

* “Every publishing company has to have quotas.” -Rafia Zakaria (28:50)

* “Hire more non-white people. Quotas.” -Meher Ahmad (28:58)

* “I don’t know, guys. Does it matter?” -E. Tammy Kim (29:07)

* “I don’t believe in the media.” -Rahel Aima (30:11)

* “The only answer I can think of is to unionize and organize. That is the one sign of hope that I can see.” -Vinson Cunningham (31:35)

* “Above all, we need to take care of each other.” -Marie Solis (32:22)

* “The best way to diversity the media is to ensure more people can prop up a shop of their own” -Giri Nathan (36:44)

* “I just want to be a junior staff writer.” -Clio Chang (38:05)

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