Since Monica Drake became The Times’s travel editor about a year ago, she has tried to broaden and diversify the section’s offerings.

She has encouraged articles about Africa (beyond safaris), the Caribbean (beyond resorts) and American cities, including unexpected destinations like Newark.

African-American herself, she appreciates the need for diversity in her section’s coverage and is trying to foster it.

“I want it to be organic, to come about naturally,” Ms. Drake told me. An article last year about art galleries in Detroit thriving despite the city’s bankruptcy was a good example.

Her effort is going well — but not perfectly, as evidenced by recent criticism of an article and photo spread on Detroit’s Corktown neighborhood. The piece, written by a freelance contributor, has been slammed for featuring only white business owners. After all, Detroit is more than 80 percent black. I heard from a number of readers about it.



A Times reader named Pamela Moreland wrote to me about it, saying she was dismayed.

I’ve taught legions of aspiring college journalists and always was a strong voice to adding diversity — gender, ethnic, racial, economic, etc. — to all stories. In some instances, I believed that this younger, more diverse generation of writers would bring diverse sources to the work as a matter of course. I guess I was wrong. Is there anything that The Times’s Travel section editors could have done differently? Are there guidelines that The Times can offer freelancers to help ensure diversity in their offerings?

Ms. Drake told me that she never wants to force diversity into stories — “I don’t believe in checking boxes” — but that she does acknowledge the problem with this article.

“It was an oversight, but clearly, we didn’t successfully depict Corktown.” The writer, she said, was concentrating on those businesses that seemed to her the most important to the neighborhood’s resurgence.

On Twitter, in an exchange with a Detroit-based artist, the writer said that she regretted not including any black-owned businesses, but would welcome hearing about them now.

It’s good to hear that Ms. Drake sees an opportunity now to raise the topic with her staff editors.

She said that she would address it at a staff meeting, but that she planned to do so with a light touch. “I don’t see the need for a public flogging.”

“I’m happy that this brings the issue up,” she said. “It is something we really think about.”