When on Wednesday Metro announced they had found themselves a new voice from the original 1,259 hopefuls and 10 finalists, we expected the story to be filed away and soon forgotten. Reporters at the Post, see something different, though, something much more black and white.

Courtesy of our friends over at Fishbowl DC, who seem to have an in on the Post’s internal critique board, we find that a number of the newspaper’s staffers noticed and were offended by the overwhelming whiteness of the contest’s ten finalists. Some excerpts of the discussion, which was kicked off by African-American columnist Courtland Milloy:

Keith Richburg: Why are all the 10 finalists to be the voice of Metro all, apparently, white? Did someone at Metro decide they didn’t want a “black-sounding” voice or an ethnic voice to say “doors opening” or “doors closing?” [W]hy was that point not made in the story, since it seemed so glaringly obvious from the photo that it jumped out at me and grabbed me by the throat the second I picked up my Metro front…

Jonathan Yardley: I emphatically second Richburg’s comment on the Metro competition. Those ten lily-white faces leaped out at me, too. We do the same thing all the time in this newspaper of course, so maybe we’re just inured to this incredible insensitivity about the region’s complex racial and ethnic mix, but this one stuck out like the proverbial sore thumb.

Marc Fisher: I’ve received a bunch of emails and calls on this today, all from folks identifying themselves as white and all wondering why Metro, which serves a very mixed rider base, would not want a greater variety of backgrounds in the finalist group. The readers shared Keith’s suspicion that there was a preference in the selection process for white-sounding voices.

Are the Post’s reporters on to something, or are they making a mountain out of a mole-hill?

Image of finalists above courtesy of the Post. Three other finalists, all white, were pictured seperately.