“a report detailing how female reporters and editors as a group were paid less than their male counterparts”
Of course the WaPo is too far to the Left, in its owners and managers, to look at see that among the female reporters there are/were factors other than gender - continuous length of time in the profession since college (**no time off for a pregancy or child rearing), length of time in on the job at WaPo (same **), seniority and time is a senior position, as well as “merit” ratings, for why ON AVERAGE the females were earning less. Sometimes that answer is readily available in the company’s own data just looking at the work histories of those females who ARE earning above the average for their sexual group. Statistics are just statistics and do not often mean what they imply if the individual cases within the data are examined for those factors besides sex that place a person in one group or another.
While merit is partly subjective, it is not at all impossible that again due to factors other than race or ethnicity the AVERAGES show one demographic group or another is rated higher on their performance.
Again, digging into the data, and looking for the outliers in a group that averages lower than other groups, there is often examples of that ethnic group who individually have ratings as high as found on average in some other ethnic group. THOSE are the individuals that need to be pointed out as proof of the lie that the statistical averages prove any discrimination. They often don’t. They may even prove that too many in their group were hired as an “affirmative action” hire, and THEIR lower performance is pulling down the averages for their group.
For reporters, one important factor in job performance is a willingness to travel to where the info is, meet with news sources at whatever time and place is convenient to the source, etc.
Sometimes, it also involves a willingness to travel to dangerous and unpleasant locations.