Coming soon,The Ralph Wiley Rule for sports journalism hiring?

If you see value in having a workforce that more closely matches your community in various ways, including race and ethnicity (and foreign language, etc.), then broaden the pool of applicants. I see that value, because you'll get more stories that way. (Note, this has nothing to do with EEOC, and nothing do to with social obligation. It has to do with getting a broader mix of news into the product.)

The folks who say, hey, how was I to know the race of the people in the pile of resumes, are right, but that's beside the point. You can affect who is in that pile. If you think of this issue only in terms of an accusation of hiring discrimination, that's a limited point of view -- it's more about doing yourself and your readers good by making sure you have a broader group of newspeople.

If you want to have minorities and women in your workforce, then make sure you have minorities and women in your candidate pool. If you hire from those whose resumes are already in your bottom drawer, or from friends of friends, or from former employees, you're likely to have a pretty white male group.

Work hard to keep in touch with the minority groups, to build a group of contacts that includes minorities (and women, and veterans, and people who speak Spanish, etc.). And keep your antenna up -- when you add interns and college kids an part-timers, does your feeder system (friends, the publisher's kids, whatever) include only some people, not others, then fix that. Broaden the pool!

Then, when you have a job opening, hire the best person from your applicants.

Broaden the pool every time, and hire the best person every time. Best may be who writes best, or who brings us design skills we don't have, or language skills, or news sense, or multimedia. And if you have an all white male staff, you may break a tie in favor of the minority because it's a handicap for you and the reader. Don't lower your standards, and you won't have to, if you broaden the pool of minority and female applicants.

Then, over time, quite slowly at the rate we hire now in most parts of the news biz today, you'll get a workforce that more closely matches your community, which makes a better newsroom and a better news report.

 

And quite frankly, it's bullshit. Many editors KNOW the race of their applicants. Had someone recently tell me this story about when he worked at a paper. He said the SE told him this about hiring: narrow your field of applicants to 10. if there is one qualified minority in that 10, that person gets the job. if there are 2, those folks compete. if there are 3, 4, and so on -- they become the field of finalists ... the message was: if possible, hire a minority. period.

 

Ah, that explains the overwhelming flow of minorities into the industry.

There goes the neighborhood.

 

Can you imagine how entitled and clueless someone has to be to say, "I really hate it when stuff like this comes up because we're all part of the same race - THE HUMAN."

That translates to: My race enslaved yours for thousands of years, and the chance of you getting an equal break today are piss poor, and whenever you do catch a break I'm going to whine about it, saying you get all the unfair advantages. But you're not allowed to mention race at all, because I find it inconvenient to talk about it, and besides, it makes my head hurt to be able to hold two thoughts at once. Though, of course, I secretly like it when you talk about race, because it feeds into my victimology, my idea that the shortcomings in my life are caused by "those people" being moved ahead of me.

 

I am going to risk a ticket from the Irony Police and say your use of "clueless" qualifies as irony given your appraisal of where Drip stands.

Drip is good friends with Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan and every other African-American athlete of note in the past 50 years.

 

LOL. A very amusing post. Stay in the suburbs.

 

Dismissive of equal rights and fairness? What are you talking about?

 

My apologies, "Drip." I read your "I really hate it when stuff like this comes up because we're all part of the same race - THE HUMAN RACE," combined with your calling the other person on the board "Azhole," as the standard evasion of "let's not talk about race."

 

This is a wonderfully touching statement.
Drip now has a shot at the Miss Teen South Carolina title.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lj3iNxZ8Dww&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dlj3iNxZ8Dww

 

He's fucked if he tries out for Miss Delaware.

 

I'm fucked - period. lol

 

Isn't that a requirement?