Sports page designer, The Washington Times

We've actually had a number of desk folks live in Annapolis. It's not a bad drive (for this area) at all to our office, it's Beltway-free in fact.

 

Last I checked, the full-time sports writing staff had one African American (NBA), no women, no Asians, no Hispanics. Despite being located in one of the most diverse cities in America, it's almost exclusively white and male. (Not sure about the support staff since I've never dealt with them.) Please correct me if I am wrong, Mr. Taylor.

 

In other words, they have the exact opposite hiring strategy of the other paper in town?

 

I can't help ya with the editors and such at the Post, but based on my experiences with their writers, I count at least 15 white males, a half-dozen black males, 2 Asian women (one might be an intern), 3 white women and 1 Hispanic male. Seems like a pretty diverse crowd. More diverse than other big papers, I don't know.

 

It indeed seems to be a diverse group, which is great -- as long as you aren't often bringing in unqualified, underwhelming hires simply for the sake of it.

Anyways, sorry, that debate has been done and done again here.

 

How does a staff become diverse? When other writers leave. Well, that's not happening at the Times. ... The newest hires are on the Nationals (been there nearly five years) and Redskins (been there less than two years). ... Their NBA, NHL, Redskins No. 2 guy, and a bunch of columnists have been there going on 12-15 years, if not more. I know one of their columnists has been there since the mid 1980s. ... Plus, the Post has probably triple the sports staff so that gives them more chances to diversify their staff.