Scoop Jackson's article from Espn the lack of black sports editors

I think is a hard business to crack regardless of color. Granted, this is coming for a white guy who has never been a victim of racism - but white or black, it is very tough.

You could start a bonfire with the amount of rejection letters I've received.

Wish I had more eloquent or controversial points to make. But that's it...

 

I'm a black male and after being turned down for an SE position and being told I'm too valuable in the position I'm in, I wanted to make a brief post. Because when they didn't hire me, they did fill it with a guy who owns zero APSE awards, zero state press association awards and has bounced around pm dailies for the last couple of years.
Funny how this business works

 

This is how The Man keeps us all down . . . by us fighting with each other.

 

Sorry to bump this, but I just have to get this off my chest.

Read it yesterday at the urging of one of our summer interns, who happens to be a black male.

We talked about it for about 45 minutes and came to a couple of conclusions.

1. The pool of minority candidates for any position, much less SEs, is small. The intern and I both went to state schools with large J programs and daily campus newspapers. I graduated in '98. He graduated last year. I asked him, "how many minorities were in your news-ed focus, how many worked at your newspaper, how many other minority journalism interns have you seen?"
His answer: none. There were none in mine. When I asked him why he said, "Because all the black kids are studying business." You can't hire candidates that aren't there.
When I asked him if the fact that there are few minorities in upper management in this business wanted to keep him from writing, he said "no, but it lets you know how steep the climb is" which is a fair point and pretty much let me know I'll probably be working for him some day, he's that smart.

2. I think he didn't pay enough heed to the point that you don't walk out of J-school to be the SE at a 250,000 circ. daily. I would say there is progress being made, but the guys that graduated 10-15 years ago _ if they've taken the standard track to management _ are getting close to the pointin there career when they will being to take some of those positions.
Oh, and fuck Scoop for somewhat bitching that he wasn't editor in chief at Slam but editor at large, like the fact that he had a prime job at Slam at age 12 was a fucking problem.

3. I think that for all the help that ESPN has given the business by promoting PTI and the Sports Reporters, etc., it's given kids _ of any race _ who graduate a sense of entitlement, that they DESERVE to walk into prime beats at big papers the second they get out of school. When faced with covering high school volleyball for 2-3 years, they go to grad school instead.

Again, sorry for the bump.

 

Double-standard, double-standard, double-standard . . .

I don't see Scoop lamenting the lack of white, American-born shooting-guards in the NBA . . .

 

I'd like to know what Whitlock, Deron Snyder and other African-American writers who post here think of Scoop's take.

 

Well, David Aldridge did a similar column yesterday, and even interviewed his SE who's also the president of APSE.

 

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/sports/15060913.htm
for those interested

 

Scoop is a fucking moron...

I'm guessing those kids couldn't name 300 white sportswriters either... Hell, they probably couldn't name 30...

If more black people wanted to be sportswriters, we'd have more black sportswriters...

I read somewhere that 12 percent of journalism students are minorities. In the same article, it said that 10 percent of journalists are minorities... If 50 percent of journalism students were minorities, that would be a huge problem, but that's not the case...

 

Ding ding ding!

Sorry if I don't see th ereason to make this a big social cause. It's pretty obvious to anyone who has been in the biz that if someone who happens to be a minority wants to get into this, they're are PLENTY of opportunities out there.

It's hard enough , with the lack of jobs and bad pay, to make it in this business as someone who really wants it. You'll have to excuse me if I don't feel bad for people of any race who would have to be prodded and begged to get into it.

 

in tomorrow's kc star i'm going to test the limits of my free speech. it won't be pretty. and when its's over, i might be the loser. but at this point, i don't give a flyin' f***.

 

Looking forward to reading this (no sarcasm font).