Ed Werder doesn't like women helping women

Is track, where your ability to participate is entirely measurable and merit based (perhaps more so than any other sport), overlooking white men or discouraging them from participating?

 

Mchenry’s working that corner of her cesspool hard.

 

This is a terrible analogy.

 

Yes. You don’t think white men and women veer off from pursuing track and basketball bc the overwhelming talent pool is black? Happens much more in the U.S. than in Europe. Same reason black athletes are so underrepresented in baseball, tennis and golf. The influence works across races.

Expecting Ed Werder, who got downsized out of the business, to help out minorities and women just starting out is extremely naive.

 

Tricky, indeed. I think several of the most talented, hard working individuals covering sports are women. Some of them have said they don't feel welcomed in locker rooms, or that male colleagues make them feel as though they are in some way inferior. The examples are numberless, and I hate hearing it because they deserve a place at the table. But are women still at a systematic disadvantage when it comes to getting a job in this business? I've just never seen that.

I've worked at small dailies and major metros, and we've had women hires in every department where I've worked. I once asked a very talented friend of mine who covers the NFL how she separated herself during the application process and she was not shy about telling me how her employer wanted a woman who could do video. Another friend of mine got a job as a sports producer at a major metro daily and she had never written anything previously. She had been a non-sports editor and page designer. In those cases, being a woman wasn't holding them back.

There is absolutely a disproportionate number of white males in sports media, but is that because women and minorities have been discriminated against or because there are more white males pursuing the professions? I don't know who knows the answer to that question, but I think that's a place to start. Simply pointing out that the large majority of press boxes are white and male is disingenuous and lazy.

 

Wha? No.

Let's keep this in journalism. Or on the Planet Earth.

 

Ya mean like asking Ed Werder to help minorities and women get jobs? That might play on Planet Lovetron with Darryl Dawkins.

 

Ignore Az's moral prescriptions then.

 

I think they're kind of a isolated spot - not a disadvantage, but an isolated spot - at the middle/lower levels of the business because there just aren't that many of them - and not because the middle/lower levels won't hire them, necessarily. Like I said, it's hard. And I think some of that is: A) Perception that middle/lower levels are exclusively boys clubs B) If they're good, they can move up pretty quick because larger media organizations have the money and the already-in-place diversity to make that happen. C. Middle/lower level markets aren't very exciting places to live.

 

I'm absolutely with Wilder that women should be encouraged to apply for a job some may not feel they're qualified for. I've been clear that women deserve a place in the industry. But no, at a time when publications are openly trying to diversify, as they should, women and people of color who are the most qualified candidates are not "often" passed over at "every" publication.

 

if anything, they’re more likely to get hired over a white male who has a slightly better resume bc of that desire to diversify. There is definite value in that as a diversity of opinions and experiences is beneficial to all businesss and publications. But let’s leave the hiring initiatives to HR, not Charlotte Wilder and Ed Werder.

 

Absolutely. There is a need for opinions and perspectives that differ from white males, and women are made to feel BY SOME as though they don't belong in sports media. But let's not equate that to getting stonewalled at every turn when it comes to looking for a job.