The honest answer is that you can't know whether they're trying to implicitly point out that she was only hired for her race or whether they're trying to hold her up as a hero of the black community.
I would like more open discussion between people at the very least. I think large news outlets simply have to do a better job at taking advantage of their outreach and giving proper visibility into people like her when they're finally given their chance to be in the spotlight. She may be the least famous person in the article but she is his replacement and their coverage of her merits is laughable at best. Any other mention of her in this story is strictly filler. Just give her more than dropping her current title and that cringy statement. Improper coverage like this happens too often and needs to be pointed out so that it bad attention when it is published.