Ed Werder doesn't like women helping women

I don't know what happens between the classroom and the workplace. I would just guess that of the classes I've taught, they've been probably 80 percent female on average. I've never been in a press box or a news conference or a workplace that's 80 percent female. Somehow, they're not completing the journey.

 

Not just the sports page.


Vida survey of gender bias in literary criticism shows 'stubborn imbalance'

 

You have more insight at the upper levels of the business than I do. How is it biased up there? Not the athletes, but the organizations themselves. ESPN seems to employ a lot of women; indeed, put a lot of effort into hiring and developing women. How's it biased?

 

Who had Fox News winning the gender parity competition? Not I!

I think you'll see these numbers change dramatically in ten years. Even in sports. (Though perhaps not to your liking.)

As I've written...the hard-left shift is coming. The world you hope to see...you're largely gonna see. Even if Trump wins four more years, which I don't expect.

 

All I see is a shift to the hard right, but if what you think will happen actually happens, it will be in response to today, the way today is a response to a black president.

 

Roger Ailes.

 

Sort of telling that equal representation in the workplace is seen as a function of the "hard left."

 

To me, this hard right shift is the equivalent of a car going up a hill while descending down a mountain. The social institutions have largely changed, and they'll keep changing. Without being too rude, the next 10-15 years will draw down the pool of most conservative voters and younger generations - even evangelical Christians - are going left. They're disgusted with Baby Boomers. Maybe by 2035. 2040 at the latest. But I think it's only 2030 before we see big, big changes.

 

I was very pig-headed for the decade I was in sports before I left for news. Always looked at it like minor-league baseball... I was very good at the game but, apparently, not good enough to make it to the show.

At least in TV sports when I was in it -- female and minority candidates often were like left-handed pitchers. Managers were falling over themselves to try and hire them.

A good part of why I left -- there's hardly any male reporters in TV news and that means not many middle-aged male news anchors, regardless of heritage, are left.

 

Is going into journalism *still* a rich kid's path?

I know a ton of young people - male or female - making that $27k on their first job after graduation from Medill or Mizzou or Boston U - who are still living off mom/dad. They live in the newest condos and drive late-model SUVs... on that $957 take-home pay every two weeks.

That's where I think the bigger concern in journalism (sports and news) is. Far too many of my colleagues are underpaid but still don't really *struggle* like so many of our viewers or readers.

 

I think we do a decent job, and I think we'd like to do better. We have a female editor in chief of our magazine. Two of the four senior deputy editors are women. Our creative director/head of design is a woman. Five of our nine senior editors are women. Seven of our senior writers are women. Our director of photography is a woman.

I would also argue you can't use ESPN as a barometer for this, because Disney actually cares more than most places about it.

I love Sports Illustrated, really respect the executive editor, and want to see them do well under new ownership. They have hired more women in recent years who, like Charlotte, are very good at a lot of different things. Vrentas. Apstein. Niesen. Kaplan (who left to work for ESPN).

So let's say SI is doing better. Not great, but better. I'd argue The Ringer has done well at giving women opportunities at big jobs. Some of their most prominent people are women. Malory Rubin. Katie Baker. Juliet Litman. Say what you will about Bill Simmons, but I've always heard he has been a super supportive boss when it comes to offering jobs to women and supporting them once they get them.

Yet ... how is The Athletic doing? I count nine women out of 101 hires on their site. So about 8 percent of the jobs at the hottest sports writing start up are going to women. How will Ed Werber break it to his class that the one place currently hiring sportswriters is only hiring 92 percent men?

Why, considering those numbers, would women who already work in sports journalism want to encourage other women to see if they might be right for a job opening?

Not give them jobs, as someone like Charlotte Wilder has no hiring power. But encourage them to apply?