Last July, in the wake of George Floyd’s death and the subsequent Black Lives Matter protests that broke out across the country, the then president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, Lorenzo Soria, made a motion to members to vote to hire a consultant of diversity. He recommended Pam Jackson, former vice president of international distribution advertising for 20th Century Fox.
“It is not that the association has committed any crime or that we are doing completely wrong things,” said Soria, according to a recording of the conversation obtained by The Times. “We were thinking about it because of the times we live in [in] and because there is always something that I think we can all learn and that, again, we may not be aware of. ”
Soria, who passed away in August, pointed out during the meeting that HFPA had no black members and had not for many years. “I believe that the association will benefit. … I believe that nowadays it is also good for the association to have this type of figure working on our behalf ”, he said in the recording.
HFPA members ended up voting against Jackson’s membership, with some members saying they wanted to evaluate other candidates.
“I think we should come back to you with a lot of different names, which I think a lot of members seem to prefer,” said Soria at the meeting.
It is not clear whether the HFPA has ever considered other candidates.
The disclosure of the HFPA’s internal vote comes as the organization behind the Golden Globe continues to face fierce criticism of a recent Times investigation that, among other things, found that there were no black journalists among the group of 87 forts.
Although the HFPA has made public proclamations saying it plans to address and “work immediately to implement an action plan to achieve these goals as soon as possible”, the vote indicates that the organization has been aware of the problem since last summer. Faced with similar criticisms in the wake of the #OscarsSoWhite storm, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced in 2016 that it would double the number of blacks in its ranks, a goal reached last year.
HFPA did not respond to requests for comment on the July meeting and vote.
The National Assn. of Black Journalists on Wednesday said he agreed to meet with the HFPA and work on a plan to bring more black journalists into the organization.
“Black journalists are important, whether in the United States or around the world,” said NABJ President Dorothy Tucker in a statement. “Now that HFPA has been legitimately called on to this shameful fact, the NABJ is ready to engage with HFPA to resolve these issues immediately.
Jackson told The Times in an interview this week that she has dealt with HFPA for many years and remembers having several conversations with Soria.
“I said, ‘You have to have more people of color and younger people. (…) You need to think about your future if you want to survive. ‘He understood that,’ she said, and told him that ‘at some point you are going to have to deal with it’.
According to Jackson, Soria told her that she did not want to scare members and “we can only change one thing at a time”.
Jackson said he was not disappointed that the association voted against bringing it because he hoped that if it weren’t for them, they would find someone else. “For me, it was taking a job in the worst place in the world, even though it was a job forever.”
In recent days, HFPA members have offered a variety of explanations for the absence of black members.
Australian HFPA member Jenny Cooney, in an interview on Monday in the Australian morning news “Today”, acknowledged that for years the lack of black members “was not really something we focused on” She said that as the group includes people countries like India, Bangladesh and the Philippines, “we really don’t consider [the lack of a Black member] a problem.”
“I always thought that diversity was not about skin color, but about nationalities and people’s origins,” said Cooney. “Also, because we were writing for foreign publications, I never understood that … we had to go look for a black man. It seemed very strange to me. But we always welcome everyone and, if someone had signed up, we would welcome them with open arms. ”
HFPA has several people of color in its ranks and says that 35% of its members are from non-European countries, including India, Bangladesh, Japan and the Philippines.
The HFPA, however, has not had a black member for more than 20 years. In 2013, the group rejected a black candidate, British journalist Samantha Ofole-Prince from Los Angeles, a decision that sparked controversy within the group at the time and, in recent days, has generated new tensions among members.
Cooney sought to transfer some responsibilities to Motion Picture Assn. (formerly known as Motion Picture Assn. of America, or MPAA), which compiles a press list for the studios of accredited entertainment journalists on which HFPA depends as part of its application process.
According to HFPA rules, in addition to submitting clips and securing two sponsors, candidates must have been listed on the MPA’s journalist directory in the past two years.
According to a source familiar with MPA procedures who was not authorized to comment, MPA is not involved in any way with HFPA’s membership decisions other than providing access to its media directory. The group’s accredited press list has about 200 journalists, and the MPA does not ask candidates about their race or ethnicity.
Ofole-Prince was accredited by MPA for the first time in 2011 and is still listed in the group’s directory.
Cooney declined to comment and referred questions to the HFPA.
Theo Kingma, a former president of HFPA, previously told The Times that Ofole-Prince did not meet the requirements set by the MPA. On Wednesday, Kingma said he was surprised to learn that Ofole-Prince was in fact listed in the MPA directory.
“It is good news that it is accredited,” he said. “I would be happy to sponsor you for HFPA. … We are open to everyone to sign up. ”
Another member, Dierk Sindermann, sent an internal email last week to members, in which he contradicts Kingma’s claim that Ofole-Prince did not meet MPA requirements. He wrote that she was rejected because she did not receive “enough votes”.
Ofole-Prince did not respond to requests for comment.
During the July member meeting at which Jackson’s candidacy as a diversity consultant was discussed, the members presented their experiences.
Aida Takla O’Reilly, a former president, noted that at one time the statute allowed the appointment of an honorary member – “perhaps as Oprah Winfrey or whatever you choose. I think it plays a lot, ”she said, according to the recording.
O’Reilly declined to comment on his comments.
Another member present at the meeting, Husam “Sam” Asi, who represents the UK and the Middle East, called HFPA, saying that he worked in many different countries in many different areas, but that he never encountered as many “racist comments” as he had in this association.
“I always have to explain and defend who I am … my ethnicity and the people I come from or even religion.” He added: “I heard about other members who also encountered this problem.”
Contacted on Tuesday, Asi, a Palestinian who was born in Israel, said: “Yes, I said those things. There were some painful things that I was subjected to. ”
A third member at the meeting, Mahfouz Doss, a former HFPA president who represented Egypt, was totally offended by the issue.
“We are talking about diversity,” he said during the meeting. “I don’t think there is an organization on Earth [that is] diverse as a whole, ”he added, noting that HFPA represents more than 40 different countries. “And that is enough diversity.”
Doss could not be reached for comment.
During the Golden Globe broadcast on Sunday, three HFPA leaders – Helen Hoehne, vice president; Meher Tatna, chairman and former chairman; and Ali Sar, current president – took the stage, promising: “We recognize that we have our own work to do”.
Times staff writer Josh Rottenberg contributed to this report.