Is sports journalism failing women?

No, the small community newspapers "draft" from college papers. Once the journalist has hopefully learned all the stuff s/he didn't figure out in college, then the mid-major gets to offer free agent deals. The bigger name/circulation outlets just have more money available under the cap.

The problem, I think, goes back to the f'ing studs mentality which used to be frequently brought up here. If you're going to graduate soon, you should probably be applying to the Podunk Times, not The New York Times. That would give those smaller papers a bigger pool of candidates -- which would likely include more women and minorities.

But that goes back to Alma's original question about whether the women and minorities can skip that step. However, they'd still show up SOMEwhere in the poll... but a lot of those small papers aren't APSE members either, so they may not have been included.

Looking around my own press tables recently, I think there are fewer women at small papers than there used to be. I'm not sure if that's an indicator of fewer women in the business overall -- I know quite a few who have gotten out in the past couple of years -- or more upward mobility. I suspect it's the former.

 

So you want people to deny themselves better opportunities so they can fit into the old-school sense of propriety about where they "should" be? Interesting. I hope you aren't a career counselor.

You're probably seeing fewer women at smaller papers because there are fewer people, period, at smaller papers. And maybe, just maybe, college graduates are deciding they don't want to work for wages that keep them at or near the poverty line and do not provide relevant 21st-century job training.

 

Hey, if you can get hired at The New York Times out of college, more power to you. But if you need a job, you'll take the job available -- and there are a lot more small media outlets than larger ones.

Even with the fading business, AWSM's membership appears to be growing -- thanks to college chapters. Those women are going to work somewhere... but apparently it's not anywhere being measured in that study.

My guess is given economic and regional constraints, more people are giving up on their journalism dreams and getting out. But the study didn't ask where the women and minorities were going instead of journalism. It surveys where they are working and their influence in coverage, as well as the portrayal of women across media -- including fiction TV, video games, and the choice of female sources.

FYI, anyone who wants to read the original report can download the PDF.
http://www.womensmediacenter.com/pages/2014-statistics

 

A) Based on unemployment rates among young people and recent college graduates, your statement appears to be incorrect.

B) Of the ones who are working, it is probably at a place that isn't a newspaper -- which is, I say without exaggeration, the single most useless and counterproductive industry for a college graduate.

 

Oh, goodness. No.

I think the culture is such that a young writer (whoever it is) figures: Well, if I can't write at one of 10 papers or these four Web sites, screw it, I'll go be a bean counter/data analyst at the marketing company.