Bloomberg News recently published an article that has been met with criticism for its representation of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement and its influence on corporate America. The article, titled “Corporate America Promised to Hire a Lot More People of Color. It Actually Did,” linked the 2020 BLM protests to companies’ decisions to increase diversity in their workforce.
The publication suggested that the upheaval following the death of George Floyd led to a “massive racialized shift in workforce hiring in 2021,” with only 6 percent of jobs at major companies analyzed going to White workers. This was hailed as “progress” by Bloomberg, which also highlighted companies in the S&P 100 that had made significant changes to their hiring practices based on race.
However, critics argue that these statistics suggest racial discrimination against white applicants. Ryan Girdusky, an independent writer, stated on X (formerly Twitter), “Following the BLM protests, just 6% of new S&P 100 jobs went to white applicants. The only way this is possible is if corporations racially discriminated against white applicants.”
Critics also contend that Bloomberg’s portrayal of the 2020 BLM protests as merely “protests” downplays the estimated $2 billion in damage caused to small businesses during the unrest. MRC Vice President Dan Schneider accused Bloomberg of endorsing the “shakedown of prominent companies by the self-proclaimed Marxists leaders of Black Lives Matter Inc.” He criticized Bloomberg News for seeing a connection between the 2020 riots and companies choosing employees based on their race, labelling it as “progress.”
Furthermore, Bloomberg News was criticized for not disclosing its own role in pressuring companies to adopt Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) investing. Earlier this year, the media company boasted about assigning ESG scores to 5,500 companies and collecting ESG data on 15,000 companies. Critics argue that such data collection is designed to increase activist pressure on companies. Bloomberg News and its founder, Michael Bloomberg, have been known for their aggressive stance in pushing companies and states toward extreme environmentalism.
See full article at Newsbusters.
Photo by Gage Skidmore, Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic
Jack McPherrin ([email protected]) is a managing editor of StoppingSocialism.com, research editor for The Heartland Institute, and a research fellow for Heartland's Socialism Research Center. He holds an MA in International Affairs from Loyola University-Chicago, and a dual BA in Economics and History from Boston College.
