Counting Progress

Apparently, when you are named one of the Top 10 Media Writers of the Year on LinkedIn, you might as well be working in the newsroom of the closest media organization in town, and it's about 10 minutes from deadline.

What you wrote last week, or even yesterday doesn't matter. What's on deck for tomorrow's edition?

While I have given myself some time to bask in the glow of this accomplishment, I also noted the email suggestion from LinkedIn that I seize the moment by increasing my number of posts and capitalizing on this honor. So I've decided to use this opportunity to confess that I am a hardcore, unashamed diversity counter.

It doesn't matter if I'm reading about the Top Ten Chefs, or the Top 20 Film Directors, or the Top 100 Athletes of the Past Century, or heck, even the best hopscotch players of all time, my default response is to count how many of them are women and/or people of color. While I don't consider myself overly combative about this issue, when we are so flagrantly missing on these types of compendiums, it's impossible to NOT notice.

That's why my sense of accomplishment is so heightened by being included  in the group of 2015 #LinkedInTopVoices in Media. Just take a look at picture above. If this were 20, even 10 years ago, I would be willing to bet the rent that 7 or 8 of those faces would have been white males, and the other two white females. I call it the "Vanity Fair Hollywood Issue Effect." Year after year, editors at that esteemed publication don't even blink when filling the front cover with all white faces, as if people of color don't even live in California, no less contribute to the entertainment industry.

Now, I know an objective argument might be that if website coordinators must choose from a pool of regular contributors, and the overwhelming majority of those contributors are white, then it's not fair to criticize a lack of diversity. But looking at the picture of my fellow Top Media Writers, I'm actually almost giddy. It's an equal split--5 men and 5 women. And here's the thing that REALLY gets me, right in the old ticker: 3 of those women are African American.

I'm guessing I'm the oldest woman, and all of my younger female colleagues impress the heck out of me! If I'd been that sharp 20 years ago...well, let's just say I'd be running the Washington Post right about now! But more than viewing the line-up from a personal perspective, my group of honorees gives me the very potent impression that LinkedIn editors were forecasting a progressive future for media and communications, not giving one final fond tip of the hat to the  20th Century. Granted, some might note the lack of Latino or Asian presence, and that's probably a valid argument. But I say this without an ounce of ego:  I think they got it right, and not just because I'm included in the list. They got it right because they were inclusive for all the right reasons.

And heck, I didn't even bring my A-Game this year!  So you better hold on to your skulls for 2016, because my Muse seems to have taken out a long-term lease on my brain these days. You might get sick of reading the Adventures of Rachella, Context Queen, Development Issues Irritant-In-Chief, and Most Honorable Media Mama Hen, but I promise you won't be bored.