4 NPR hosts quit in the last year, 3 were women of color

NPR announced another host departure last week, Audie Cornish has stepped down from All Things Considered. That's the fourth NPR radio host to leave in the past year, and three of those high-profile resignations are women of color.

This is troubling for a network whose executives have publicly declared their intention to have NPR look and sound more representative of the America it strives to serve.

These resignations come as NPR leaders are making their most significant effort to change the racial and ethnic composition of the company. In 2021, 78% of new hires were people of color. Internally, journalists are using a new system to track the diversity of their sources. All hiring committees must be racially and ethnically diverse, as must all job-candidate finalist pools.

And NPR did a wage-gap analysis that revealed white employees and men hold a disproportionate number of jobs with high salaries, said Carrie Storer, chief human resources officer. "To move the needle on that, you have to improve your hiring and promotion processes," she said.

Last year, under pressure from four female hosts, including two who eventually quit, NPR leadership adopted a new salary structure for hosts, NPR's Media Correspondent David Folkenflik reported.

All of this internal work is designed to foster a staff of journalists who can develop new content to reach a broader audience. Listeners to NPR on radio — its largest platform by far