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The diversity of late-night writers rooms is not a new topic of conversation.

For years, these shows have been accused of being too white and too male, and while that still might be the case, there has been improvement across the board both in terms of gender and ethnicity. Progress is being made, slowly, in the right direction.

So, it was nice to see, earlier this week, that the new team behind the scenes at NBC’s A Little Late with Lilly Singh was incredibly inclusive.

Chelsea Davison, taking over from Sean O’Connor, leads a gender-balanced and diverse writing team of Vannessa Jackson, a former writing apprentice on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert; Sabeeh Jameel, who was a researcher on The Opposition with Jordan Klepper; Romen Borsellino, co-creator of Freeform’s Kal Penn Approves This Message; Nimesh Patel, a former writer for Saturday Night Live who was discovered by Chris Rock; Nelu Handa,...

NBC has unveiled the new class for its annual Late Night Writers Workshop. Out of a pool of 900 candidates, writers Brandon Burkhart, Gracie Canaan, Reem Edan, Kyle Harris, Emily Menez, Sam O and Kate Sisk have been named as this year’s participants for the workshop.

The new class participated in an intensive virtual five-day program that prepared them for staff writer roles on late night and sketch comedy shows. Now in its eighth year, the program helps bolster NBC’s inclusive initiatives by discovering developing late night and sketch comedy writers of diverse backgrounds.

“Over the past eight years, the Late Night Writers Workshop has made a significant impact on the late night and sketch comedy landscape. Many of our alumni now write for top shows across the industry, and we are confident this new class of talented writers will follow suit,” said Lisa Katz and Tracey Pakosta, Co-Presidents,...