General Motors CEO Mary Barra plans to meet with seven black-owned media executives, according to GM, a move that follows the group’s publishing of a full-page ad in the Detroit Free Press on Sunday accusing her of being racist for not directing more GM ad dollars to minority media.
The meeting between the auto industry’s first woman CEO and media executives including Weather Channel owner Byron Allen and rapper and media mogul Ice Cube follows an online session the group held this week with the automaker’s Chief Marketing Officer Deborah Wahl.
“We wanted to have a preliminary meeting between (CMO Wahl) and (her) team to lay out our broader strategy on diversity and Black-owned media, including all marketing, advertising and sponsorship activities prior to a meeting with Mary,” GM said in a statement.
Group runs advertisement again
The exact timing of the session with Barra wasn’t disclosed but spokesman Pat Morrissey told TheDetroitBureau company officials were “perplexed” to see the Sunday ad rerun in the Wall Street Journal.
“We are disappointed that Mr. Allen and his fellow signatories resorted to additional paid media advertising to advance a narrative of factual inaccuracies and character assault against our CEO, Mary Barra” by that, GM said in a new statement sent to TheDetroitBureau.com.
Since becoming GM CEO in January 2015, Barra has declared a goal of creating “the most inclusive company in the world. But Allen and the other members of his group argued in the original ad that they are victims of “systemic racism.” The group claimed they had repeatedly been rebuffed over requests to meet with Barra, demanding the CEO either meet with them now or resign.
Barra has made diversity a cornerstone of her tenure. Just last week the company appointed two new members to its board of directors: former Hewlett Packard CEO Meg Whitman and Mark Tatum, the deputy commissioner and COO of the National Basketball Association. The board has become the first of any major corporation with a majority of female directors.
General Motors CEO Mary Barra has positioned herself as an active sponsor of corporate diversity but she came under fire from a group of black-owned media executives over the weekend demanding she either up spending in minority outlets or resign.
The full-page ad in Sunday’s Detroit Free Press was signed by seven black executives including the owner of Ebony magazine and rapper and publisher Ice Cube. They expressed frustration about allegedly being rebuffed after repeated requests to meet with Barra to discuss GM’s lack of spending in their outlets and others.
“You stand on stage, after the death of George Floyd, saying, ‘Black Lives Matter,’ when you have refused to acknowledge us,” the ad says of Barra. “The very definition of systemic racism is when you are ignored, excluded and you don’t have true economic inclusion.”
“Mary, we and others firmly believe that if you continue to hold the position that Black Owned Media doesn’t deserve meaningful economic inclusion and we are not worth meeting with, then you should resign effective immediately,” the ad continued.
Newspaper ad stuns many
The ad and the claims against Barra took many observers in Detroit and the broader automotive community by surprise considering Barra’s frequent comments about diversity and the actions she has taken since becoming the first female CEO of a major auto company in January 2014.
Just days before the ad ran, GM announced the appointment of two new members of its Board of Directors, former Hewlett Packard CEO Meg Whitman and Mark Tatum, the deputy commissioner and COO of the National Basketball Association. The board has become the first of any major corporation with a majority of female directors.
Barra has spoken out on a number of occasions calling for greater diversity in both the auto industry and in the greater society.
At a conference sponsored by JP Morgan last week, Barra talked about her push for more inclusiveness within GM.
“We continue to have conversations that make people a little uncomfortable because we believe once you’re aware of a situation and understand it better, it’ll lead to change,” she told her virtual audience. “We’re very aware of changing the culture of the company. Our goal is to create an environment where people can be their true self at work. If you can’t be your true self, I would think that would be exhausting and how can you do your best work?”
Walking the talk
But the group signing the full-page ad argue Barra’s talk isn’t followed up by action, at least not in terms of spending within black media. They claim that less than 0.5% of General Motors’ ad spending goes to outlets like theirs.
“We are requesting a one hour Zoom meeting with you and several of your key board members and us, the largest Black Owned Media companies in America, so we can resolve this very important issue and have a long-term partnership that’s mutually beneficial for General Motors and the African American consumers,” the ad stated.
It was signed by seven leading African-American media moguls:
- Byron Allen: Founder, chairman & CEO of California-based Allen Media Group, which owns The Weather Channel and provides other web and cable media services;
- Junior Bridgeman: who purchased Ebony Media and Ebony Magazine out of bankruptcy last year;.
- Todd F. Brown, PMP: founder of the, Urban Edge Networks and HBCU League Pass;
- Earl “Butch” Graves Jr.: President and CEO of the business publication Black Enterprise;
- Ice Cube: a well-known rapper and owner of BIG3, Cubevision, CWBA;
- Don Jackson: Founder, chairman and CEO of Chincago-based Central City Productions, a television production company;
- Roland Martin: CEO of Nu Vision Media, Inc., which produces the daily online show, #RolandMartinUnfiltered.
GM did not yet respond to a request for comment from TheDetroitBureau.com But spokesman Pat Morrissey told the Free Press that GM spends more than the group claimed on black media. He also noted that it has taken additional steps that include the Chevrolet division’s “Real Talk, Real Change,” a project aimed to encourage discussion about race.
Auto company’s efforts
Well-known black filmmaker Spike Lee was a lead participant in the launch of the latest-generation Cadillac Escalade last year. And GM, said Morrissey, is also sponsoring a project looking at racial issues called “More than That with Gia Peppers.”
“General Motors aspires to be the most inclusive company in the world, and that includes how we allocate media spend. We have increased our planned spending with both diverse-owned and diverse-dedicated media across our family of brands,” GM said in a statement noting it has also partnered with the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters on a content series for Black American listeners produced and distributed by underrepresented businesses. In this same spirit, we will continue to have an open dialogue with Mr. Allen.”
The carmaker has not said whether it now plans to have CEO Barra talk by Zoom or other means with the sponsor of Sunday’s ad.
The use of the word “attack” in the headline about Black-owned media outlets is a poor choice, specifically because it recalls stereotypes of Black people as violent. I’d like to think that this was not a deliberate choice, but considering the lack of representation in most newsrooms and publications, it is an ignorant slight.
Hi, Trevor, an interesting comment but not even remotely in my thoughts as the story was written. In a race neutral reading, one can only see the harsh comments made about Mary Barra as a personal attack, however. To be unable to use the word, “attack” in such a situation would be, in itself, a symptom of bias. Had it been ANY group making similarly sharp comments, I’d have chosen the same verb. So, no, it was not meant as a slight and it clearly was not “ignorant.”
Paul A. Eisenstein
I appreciate your and Paul’s candor about this and updating the headline. I admit that my use of the word “ignorant” was inflammatory, and I’m aware that the word was a particular standout in the reply, but the sentiment was the same.
It would be ideal to view everything through a race-neutral lens, but introducing that Black-owned media groups were responsible makes it difficult to square away. And using dictionary definitions to explain a word’s use, while important, ignores alternative words and subsequent flexibility that could be used to evoke the same meaning.
Trevor: To add further to Paul’s comments. I edit most of the stories that appear on the website, including this one. The word “attack” didn’t jump out at me other than I thought it to be a great action verb for a headline — just as they taught us in school. That said, I saw your comment earlier today (before it got posted, Paul is the gatekeeper on comments) and decided to look up the word “attack” in the dictionary. This is what I found: to begin hostilities against; start an offensive against. I’d say that’s fitting. These seven leaders have reached their limit and they’re going on the offensive. Sometimes, even these days, a cigar is just a cigar. That said, please continue to comment when you see items that raise your ire. We may or may not agree, but the dialogue is important. M.S.
First, it’s not Mary Barra’s job to select the media companies GM supports. There is a marketing/advertising department at GM whose responsibility (and their advertising agencies) it is to select their appropriate partners. GM supports thousands of media companies/platforms. If Ms. Barra took a meeting with this group of companies she would then be obligated to meet with every media company. If she didn’t it too could be viewed as discrimination by the other media companies. Ms. Barra depends on the experts in those departments to make the media selections most appropriate for the GM brands.. But now, this group of media companies have painted themselves into a corner. What if Ms. Barra took a meeting with them? Does she all of a sudden not become a racist?
Interesting point. We do see Ms. Barra stepping in to address potential bias throughout the company. See the comment she made at the J.P. Morgan conference last week — which I quoted in my story. But she isn’t doing the hiring. She is setting the tone for the organization and leaving it to others to act appropriately. The same is the case with advertising. There it is the role of Deborah Wahl to use appropriate judgement on how to spend the GM ad budget. That said, it would not be out of the question for Barra to check up on Wahl’s performance and take action if necessary. But, barring clear indication of bias — which the CEO can readily determine using GM’s own data — it would seem hard to justify her acceding to the demand of the black media group for a direct meeting.
Paul E.
How sad that Ms. Barra has accepted this meeting. The owners of these Black Media Companies are nothing more than race hustlers similar to Al Sharpton and Jessie Jackson. GM uses both targeted media big and small. However the only sizable media company in this group is the Weather Channel. I know TWC fell on hard times due to mismanagement resulting in their sale a few years ago. The other media companies, within this group, really offer little scale to the GM media mix. I stand by my statements above. All other media companies should demand a meeting with Ms. Barra. And I’m sure, at some point, Deborah Wahl will be held responsible for this fiasco. Once this meeting takes place I’d be curious how they handle the raciest comments.
I can only assume that these companies went about attempting to get a piece of GM’s “Advertising Budget” pie and didn’t meet the requirements. If that is the case, she should have her marketing department publicly respond with a data driven explanation of why each company was not picked up. But, the companies involved should understand that if that happens they will be and deserve to be embarrassed.
Not surprisingly, apologists for Mary Barra come out of the woodwork and immediately disregard the onus of the group’s claim. Did everyone miss the “0.5% of General Motors’ ad spending goes to outlets like theirs”? Since a commenter such as Zach McLean is assuming when making his comment..maybe he’s also assuming that Black consumers only pay attention to mainstream media and not Black-owned ones. Let’s be frank, styles and trends emanate out of the urban experience. GM (Cadillac) has benefitted greatly from this, whether it be a RUN-DMC talking about “driving a Cadillac while you fixing a Ford..”. or Ludacris remarking “check out the oil my Cadillac spills”. There are A LOT more artists that have featured GM products in videos, at a time when Cadillac especially had fallen behind and THEY were prominent in the brand’s revival. Now I’m 100% sure that blacks represent more than 0.5% of GM owners (and on a per-capita basis, disproportionately comprise a good deal of Escalade owners), so don’t make it seem as if they are making an outrageous demand after being left out in the cold in a marketing decision. The reasons are systemic, but why would that even enter your thought process? If you’re going to proclaim diversity and inclusivity every time you speak, at some point, your actions must align with what you’re saying
Sorry, Rey, I am not going to take the baiting. I have long written about systemic racism, long discussed and written about the need for greater diversity within the automotive community, in particular, as that has been my beat for over 40 years. I do NOT have to take as whole-hog accurate the comments made by any group, whether it be Mary Barra and her phalanx of PR folks, or Byron Allen and his six co-signatories. It is my job to find what is accurate and frame it fairly. I spent almost two hours taking to Mssr Allen this week and worked hard to understand and express his concerns, but that does not mean dismissing anything GM may say outright. My personal position is irrelevant. BTW, you may want to check out my subsequent post which touches on GM’s changed plans and which includes Mssr. Allen’s comments in response.
Paul A. Eisenstein