BROOKE GLADSTONE: This is On the Media. I'm Brooke Gladstone.

BOB GARFIELD: And I'm Bob Garfield. Does the overwhelming reliance on White male news sources merely reflect the distribution of American political and economic power or perpetuate it? The correct answer may be a little bit of both. So then the question is what to do about it. Over the past 20 years, with varying degrees of diligence, some news outlets have made an effort to bypass the usual suspects by seeking women or minority experts and other commentators. Often called the "rainbow rolodex," the process is aimed at broadening the journalists' world view. But to others, it smacks of tokenism. When the staff of the Detroit Free Press was told last week by management to contribute to such a rolodex, some in the newsroom objected. Paul Anger is editor of the Freep, and he joins us now. Paul, welcome to OTM.

PAUL ANGER: Well, Bob, thank you. I'm glad to be with you.

BOB GARFIELD: You've said that the staff is almost totally on board. Tell me about the holdouts.

PAUL ANGER: There were some staff members who raised some of the issues that you raised in your introduction. Is it tokenism? Will we be using sources that maybe aren't as up to date or credible in some stories at the expense of getting a range of sources? And we've answered those questions, and I think the vast majority of the staff understands that it's the right thing to do for readers. It's the right thing to do for us as a business to let all sorts of people see themselves reflected in the Detroit Free Press.

BOB GARFIELD: Now, the question about whether this will bring into the paper kind of second-tier sources has some familiar echoes. I'd be interested in knowing how the same people who raise that issue regard, for instance, affirmative action, because it strikes me that the development of a rainbow rolodex is really nothing but journalistic affirmative action.

PAUL ANGER: Here's the thing, Bob. Historically, the media have had a challenge in being inclusive. And you're really not doing your job as an individual at a newspaper unless you really are in touch with the whole community. I don't know that that equates to affirmative action. I'm not sure it does. But I can tell you this – that in a range of different kinds of stories, you're liable to see, over time, a range of different kinds of people represented.

BOB GARFIELD: Now, I understand you didn't run a story or a series of ads saying, "Coming soon, the more inclusive Detroit Free Press," but this has been written about in the press. We saw a story in The New York Times about it, for example. Have you had any reaction from, for example, the black community in Detroit to your decision?

PAUL ANGER: No, there hasn't been any reaction. And I really believe that one of the reasons for that is that the city of Detroit is certainly overwhelmingly African-American. And I think that the folks in the city understand that the Free Press is committed to covering them in ways that are inclusive and comprehensive. And we don't just drop in for the crime on the corner, but we're there to cover a range in the city of Detroit, and also over our whole metro area, which is almost five million people.

BOB GARFIELD: It's not immediately obvious to the reader, necessarily, that the person you're quoting is Black or Hispanic or what have you. Will you be able to resist the temptation not to suddenly run a lot more photos of the people you're quoting in order to let the world know how diverse you've become?

PAUL ANGER: We would not run a picture of somebody just to trumpet the fact that we have somebody of color. The thing you want to be careful of is that you don't somehow turn this into something that is sort of visible in a way that seems artificial. You don't want to do that. So we have to ask ourselves – and this a hypothetical for you – is there an environmental scientist at Wayne State University who is a person of color, who can comment on the state of the Great Lakes and the pollution and some of the predator fish that are coming into the Great Lakes and causing problems? This needs to be a seamless thing where we make sure that we have a range of sources on a range of topics where people of color will be represented.

BOB GARFIELD: Paul, thank you so much.

PAUL ANGER: Okay. Well, thank you. It was my pleasure.

BOB GARFIELD: Paul Anger is the editor of the Detroit Free Press.