Ed Werder doesn't like women helping women

A couple thoughts:

First, I’m not sure Mallory Rubin and Juliet Litman fit the role of sports journalist as people would normally define it, but I think their inclusion is instructive. Rubin is a TV/movies writer/podcaster primarily, and while she’s really (really) good at that, I don’t think she’s what The Athletic is trying to hire. Litman...she’s listed as managing editor, so, in the classical sense of that word, I suppose she’s behind the scenes managing as much of the sports content as she is writing about the deep dive into the timeline of Ariana Grande and Pete Davidson’s relationship.

But I don’t want to grade The Athletic on the Bill Simmons curve.

Now The Athletic. If there’s one thing that web site tried to do, it was hire existing beat writers in markets. That was a wise decision from a branding and training standpoint - “just keep doing what you’re doing, only for us” - but, I would agree, there aren’t nearly as many women team beat writers. And I think it’s fair to wonder why that is. My sense is good ones are hired up and/or promoted upward quickly and there’s this big yawning gap right in the middle/upper middle of the market. That gap exists, IMO, in part because:

>>People get entrenched at that level and stay. And the entrenched are generally white men. So you’d either have to fire or demote all that institutional knowledge or wait until their salaries are bought out.

>>talented women and minorities just don’t stay at those shops very long very often. They move up - fast - hired by companies such as ESPN, which has the bankroll and scope and cool factor to hire away such people, who often feel no particular connection to a place even if it’s home. (The same is true of white men, mind you. It’s true of most of us.)

And that’s not to say talent shouldn’t get promoted. It should. But it creates a gap. Two of the Athletic’s national college writers started at USA today and ESPN out of college, and are now national reporters for The Athletic. But while they’d be excellent one-team beat writers, my understanding of The Athletic’s approach is they wanted to pick people already covering those teams.

And there aren’t a lot of women doing that day to day. (That simultaneously fit into the Athletic’s pay range.)

Some of it, yes, is women need those opportunities. And some of it is that really talented women get fast-tracked to the top. And there’s not a hell of a lot a mid level paper, or a Rivals can do about it.

 

Rubin was a college football editor at SI very soon out of school.

There’s a chance they decided her editing was simply not needed. But it’s doubtful.

 

I opened the Derby story while watching a "First 48" rerun, got a few grafs in, but "The First 48" won. She can turn a phrase, though, descriptive scene setter with good attention to detail. I'll read another of her stories … when "The First 48" isn't on.

 

I admittedly can't speak to what that role entailed beyond what's on the Web from that time. Bowl breakdowns and such.

What I can speak to is whether The Ringer hiring her for expansive pop culture work - which is very good - is comparable to what The Athletic is looking for in a beat writer. I'm not inclined to give Bill Simmons - one of the all-time poster children for white male (Northeasterner) sports privilege - credit for much when I don't have to. Never have been. And, as it relates to The Athletic, I'm not sure dinging them for not wanting a pop culture writer/podcaster is part of the problem.

 

I have found myself reading a lot of the Ringer's pop culture work on topics I would normally have no interest in, and enjoying it.

 

IIRC she was the editor Stewart Mandel reported to at SI. She was a Grantland hire as an editor, hosted a college football podcast and sometimes wrote baseball and college football before eventually bleeding over starting with Game of Thrones. She was then one of the first five hires The Ringer made.

So it would probably be inaccurate to characterize here hire as being for the pop culture stuff. The Ringer hired her because there’d been a prior relationship and they knew she did good work across a variety of subjects.

 

Fine. Not a hill I want to die on.

 

Aside from a pretty poor who/that effort, why weren’t any men invited to this get together!?!?!?!?!?

 

What will Ed Werder tell his young male students about brunch meet-ups?

That they shouldn't bother applying? That the weak hotel coffee and non-alcoholic mimosas aren't for them?