Erin Overbey took on a painstaking research project for herself in 2019. Combing through back issues of the New Yorker, she began tabulating the race and gender of the people who wrote and edited the magazine.
On Twitter, where Overbey posted her findings on Sept. 14 with an introduction of “Let’s talk about racism!,” she alleged that the top editorial ranks of “prestigious” magazines like the New Yorker resembled “member registries at Southern country clubs circa 1950.” Her multipart post quickly went viral, eliciting praise from influential writers including Salman Rushdie and Nikole Hannah-Jones. Veteran critic Frank Rich called it “a landmark in American press criticism.”
But it wasn’t just the research that drew attention; it was also the researcher. Overbey has worked at the New Yorker for nearly 27 years, currently as its archives editor, overseeing the vast trove of articles from which her research was drawn.
In a lengthy interview, Overbey said her project followed years of “uncomfortable” conversations among her New Yorker colleagues, including women and minority staffers, about race and gender in the upper ranks of elite magazines.
Overbey, who is White, says she decided to go public with the goal of sparking an even broader conversation about what she describes as “passive racism” — the inaction of otherwise well-meaning people. “No one likes inconvenient truths,” she said. “But inconvenient truths are the way people move forward. If you don’t speak up to the most powerful people, are you really doing anything?”
Overbey said she didn’t show her data to the New Yorker’s senior editors or seek their permission before she posted it on Twitter. “If [the data] makes things awkward and uncomfortable,” that’s an acceptable outcome, she said.
The public attention Overbey has received put the New Yorker in the awkward position of having to defend itself while at the same time downplaying a dispute with one of its own employees. Editor in Chief David Remnick has declined to comment, as did the magazine’s spokeswoman, Natalie Raabe.
Raabe released a statement saying the New Yorker has “worked hard for years” to diversify its staff and its contributors. “While we don’t believe these tweets present a full or fair view of the New Yorker and its ongoing efforts, there is always more work to do, and we look forward to doing it,” it said.
Overbey said she gleaned the racial backgrounds of New Yorker writers via Google image searches and published biographical material. Like most publications, the New Yorker does not identify who edited each story; she says her claim that a Black editor has edited only a few articles in the magazine’s history is derived from her knowledge that the New Yorker has only had two Black senior editors for features in its history, one of whom left 15 years ago. (The magazine disputes Overbey’s claim, saying two senior editors who self-identify as Black edit feature stories.)
The most extensive public defense of the magazine has come from Michael Luo, the editor of the New Yorker’s website. He tweeted that the percentage of minority hires in the New Yorker’s digital side has been “very, very high” since he took over in 2016.
“It’s worth looking at who we’ve brought aboard as editors, staff writers, and contributing writers over the last several years,” wrote Luo, who is Asian American. “It’s an incredibly talented, diverse list.”
The defensive posture is in some respects odd for the New Yorker, a magazine that has published some of the most distinguished and eloquent work about racial relations and themes over the decades. It has added a number of younger people of color to important staff positions in recent years, such as culture and TV critic Doreen St. Felix and theater critic Vinson Cunningham. Prominent staffers of color include critics Kelefa Sanneh and Hilton Als, a Pulitzer Prize winner.
In addition, the magazine over the years has published such Black writers as James Baldwin, Nobel laureate Toni Morrison, and novelists Jamaica Kincaid and Edwidge Danticat. Jelani Cobb, a Black staff writer, was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2018 for his commentaries about racial issues.
On Tuesday, coincidentally, the magazine published an anthology of its articles about race entitled “The Matter of Black Lives: Writings From the New Yorker,” edited by Remnick and Cobb, who didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Overbey insists she’s motivated solely by her desire to “move a public conversation forward,” but a tweet she posted the day before her initial Twitter thread raised suspicions among some people at the magazine about her relationship with her employer.
“That feeling when you find out you’re making 20% less than the man who held the same title & position before you (even tho you have more experience) . . . w.t.f.” Overbey wrote, adding an emoji of a scowling face for emphasis.
Overbey said the comment was unrelated to her research about diversity.
She noted that her diversity posts have elicited many supportive comments from current and former colleagues. But she declined to say whether she intended to post more data about the magazine.
She also gave a hesitant response when asked about the reaction to her posts from the New Yorker’s senior editors.
“I think the best way to answer that. . . .” she replied, and then stopped mid-sentence. “Can we go off the record?” Told no, she responded, “I prefer not to answer that question.” She declined to say why.
