Columnist opening in Orlando

May the journalism gods forgive me because I promised myself I wouldn't get caught up in this thread, but AWWWK! One minor point, though, please. We talk all the time in this business about diversity but we don't appear to have the foggiest notion what it means, even when it's right in front of our faces.

Diversity isn't whether I like her, or you like her, or Jason Whitlock likes her.

Diversity is different styles, different takes, different ideas, and, yes, different faces. You don't like Jamele? Well, guess what - there are probably lots of people who don't like what middle-aged white guys write. Not even the almighty (and amazing) Poz. It's not one size fits all. Sheesh, don't we know this by now?

We need more people and more ideas at the table, not fewer. Young, old, black, white, male, female. That's what will save the industry and our own jobs along with it.

 

So opinions, as opposed to actually doing, you know, news better will save newspapers? A bit of an overstatement, I would say.

 

This thread is about saving newspapers?

 

It's wound around to that at this point. But I certainly don't mind diverse opinion. I just want skillfully written opinion, whether I like it or not.

 

Perhaps. It's also true that it's a big, wide, wonderful world out there and the more faces and ideas at the table, the more diverse a news product (print/online/whatever) will be, and thus the increased likelihood that more people will actually read. Not that any of us are concerned with that these days.

 

And people will read, and keep reading, only because it's written by someone who looks like them? That's not giving folks of any stripe much credit.

 

I do too. I'm just not the final judge on what is skillful. Her style doesn't work for me but I have many other choices if I'm not buying what she's selling. It works both ways. I may not understand why people like her but I don't legislate taste.

 

Depends on the person, I'd suppose. I can't speak for everyone - which is, I think, the point.

 

But a paper doesn't have budget to hire a rainbow staff of 30-40 columnists to reflect the different facets of the readership. It can hire only a few columnists, and I would hope that quality comes somewhere before demographics in those hirings (this is a generality, not directed at any one columnist).

Sure, I don't want newspapers to die. But I'd rather have them die upholding good writing than living as Net Lite.

 

You are equating quality with what? Winning writing awards or the praise of your peers? The problem is that when your peers are a lot like you, they are going to automatically celebrate certain viewpoints or certain styles when in fact the readership is much more diverse, not just racially but across many categories. So quality can encompass other aspects of column-writing or reporting.

 

So you're saying writing is standardless?

 

I'm actually saying quite the opposite. There are more standards than I think many outlets consider.