Jones, the publisher, said that the Post, like other papers, is concerned with providing opportunities to foster diversity. “The Post has made a lot of strides in that area but we keep trying to work on it,” he said.

Alex S. Jones, director of the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy at the KSG, said that while there have been some high-level minority appointments in journalism, the process has been slower than many have hoped for, prompting “irritation and frustration.” Still, he said the Post’s debate might be attributable to the specific appointment.

Bennett worked in Peru in 1982 as a stringer for the Post, then joined the Boston Globe, where he covered local news and then reported on violence in Latin America, according to the Post story. In 1995 he became the Globe’s foreign editor before jumping to the Post.