KGO

Racial Discrimination, An Overall Toxic Work Environment

While I worked there I had a plethora of toxic experiences but one in particular involving the managing editor they hired from Utah, Marci Young. I was working a shift with a reporter who's story I was adapting for the web. The story was about a push by the NAACP to ban the star spangled banner due to its racist second verse. Young took it upon herself to comment to everyone in the newsroom that "why do they care, none of them were ever slaves" and looked right at me. I was the only African American female to work in the newsroom for the entire time that I was employed with KGO. For a news station in this century to have zero black women working on any day parts is atrocious but even worse to tolerate such behavior. I reported the incident but nothing was done about it. I only found out recently that Marci Young is back in Utah, teaching journalism at a local JuCo. I hope she doesn't put any students through what I endured. Also it should be noted that my direct manager was a black man, but he unfortunately was more concerned about keeping his job, then doing what is right and protecting another black woman who endured racism at the hands of a white manager. Such is the sad sad reality of many newsrooms.