Article snippet: Times Insider delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how news, features and opinion come together at The New York Times. This is my third go at covering the Oscars as The Times’s awards writer, the Carpetbagger, and heading into the season, I wondered what sort of hullabaloo would erupt this time. In 2016, there was #OscarsSoWhite: For the second year in a row, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences hadn’t nominated a single minority director or actor, prompting public outcry and demands for greater diversity in the movie business. This season it was clear after the Venice, Telluride, and Toronto Film Festivals — all litmus tests for awards-minded pictures — that it wouldn’t be another #OscarsSoWhite year. The films that emerged from the festivals as likely Oscar contenders — “Moonlight,” “Fences,” “Lion,” “Loving,” and “Hidden Figures” (the film did not screen at Toronto , but its cast still showed up to promote it) — all starred minorities. And each of these pictures received major nominations, including a directing nod to Barry Jenkins, the director of “Moonlight,” who is black. Yet for admittedly selfish reasons, I was hoping a new controversy would erupt. I have to produce a Carpetbagger column about the Oscars contest every week, for three months. Absent a fracas, the subject matter can get awfully thin. Before #OscarsSoWhite, there was always an Oscar-related dust-up to explore. Was “Selma” historically accurate? Did “American Sniper” celebrate ... Link to the full article to read more