Considered to be a huge victory, the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) announced yesterday that the Wall Street Journal and its parent company Dow Jones have pledged to close the race and gender gaps among its employees. 

However, the journalism organization feels that work still remains to be done. As the Dow Jones reporters union IAPE 1096 found in its data, there are some still some stark income differences among between men and women of color.

“This underscores the important role of our organizations, which work to develop and recruit journalists of diverse backgrounds into newsrooms,” NABJ stated in a press release. “We are banding together to voice our concerns that journalists of color and women at The Wall Street Journal and other Dow Jones publications were not being compensated for their worth. We want the value of our members fully recognized.”

In the statement, NABJ called upon The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones to communicate clearly to employees as to how they can better raise concerns about unfair pay in their newsrooms and not be signaled out when doing so. 

The organization also stated that they would like news organizations to look deeper and “conduct their own inquiries” relating to being fairly paid.

“But let’s not stop there; let’s also continue to address the lack of inclusion in our industry’s ranks. In addition to equal pay, we should also look into providing equal opportunity for promotions,” NABJ said. “We need more journalists of color in positions of leadership — which could help address these inequities during salary negotiations and the hiring process.”