Minority sports reporters

I wonder how much lawyers, doctors, and even fuckin garbage men, have this type of debate. It's the same in all fields.
I realize this is a place for us to bitch, moan, and whine, but at the end of the day, we all just hope to improve and make it to the next level of our professional careers.

 

CW1975,

Is that my double standard, or the double standard of the industry?

Glass was indeed talented, and veered off into fiction because he has a God/persecution complex and because, quite frankly, a lot of reporters hug the line. Gary Smith, with his grand themes, hugs that line, because I'm damn near certain a lot of his subjects would, if pinned down, refute his theories. Smith arranges facts to fit a theme. Glass just made the whole thing up. He was nutso.

Blair wrote about it in a book and the NYT did its own expose; Blair was a hateful person, even of his own good fortune, which he knew in this case was tied to his color, so he claims he made a conscious effort to destroy himself and the Times, too. Department after department pawned him off. I'm not necessarily Blair was treated fairly there - he was treated like a minority hire. Which is why you don't hie college dropouts who were thrown off their college paper because they have the right skin tone.

Look at how the industry viewed it. Howell Raines lost his job. The New Republic editor at the time was lionized in print and in a film, while the former one, who bought all the lies, was the Late Great Michael Kelly.

They are different circumstances, each with cautionary tales attached.

 

It is the same in all fields, probably to drastically varying degrees. My only point is that anyone saying this doesn't happen is either clueless or turning a blind eye.

Chickwriter has proven herself to be the latter. Seriously, I'm not trying to pick on you chick but some of the things you have said are so wrong and so naive, it's bewildering. Jason Blair was blatantly passed along because he was very slick and a because he was a minority. And pointing out that quotas are illegal? Are you kidding me?

 

First, hacks are kept on staff all the time - every race, age, gender, socioeconomic background. My God, it's not that easy to fire people.

And I'll start a topic to prove it.

 

To be honest, I don't mind them. And I really don't notice the colour of their skin when they're talking because I'm usually doing other things when SportsCentre is on. Just listening. And I mis-spoke, Farhan is not an anchor, per se, but the Vancouver correspondent. He does a decent job covering the Vancouver scene (i.e. the Canucks), although I ran into him a long time ago and thought he was a shade on the side snooty. But that's probably just a product of his big-city mentality (which runneth over in Vancouver ).

 

Yet, you go into any press box, from high school soccer to the Big Three sports leagues and 90-100% of those present are white males...

 

There are plenty of bad hires in this business. The ones we probably hear about more than the rest are women and viz-mins, perhaps because the stakes are higher and the subject touchier.

Being a woman, I obviously can't speak to the hiring of black males or others. But I can speak a little to the hiring of women. And I can also speak to a similar situation, that of an English-language newspaper in a city dominated by another language.

When I was in J-school (about 15 years ago now), there was certainly plenty of buzz about sports departments "needing to have a woman". Barriers had been broken down by then, and no "self-respecting" sports editor (or, more likely, his superiors) wanted to appear as though he wasn't an enlightened, 20th century guy.

I would submit that there were plenty of bad hires in that period. Further to the previous talk about pools of candidates, the percentage of women in journalism schools is disproportionately high (it was about 75% in my time, might be worse now), but the pool of women in journalism school who actually know squat about sports was probably near zero (I think there were two of us who had a clue). So that combination will obviously lead to errors.

Most of them didn't last long. If the hours and lack of personal life don't chase you out, the constant scrutiny and pressure will eventually tell you you're in the wrong place.

And I don't care what anyone says, women still have to be that much better than guys. In my first couple of years at my first paper, every yahoo from the area would call or fax or e-mail if I made a mistake. We all make mistakes on deadline. Most of mine, when pointed out, started with something like "no wonder, she's a chick. She doesn't know sports."

The thing is, I do know my stuff. The thing I hear most often is, "I didn't even know you were a woman until I saw the byline. You don't write like a woman." Oddly, I find that quite complimentary. ;D But I am, and I think I bring something extra to the table because of it.

Our newsroom is overwhelmingly white. But worse than that, it's also overwhelmingly English-speaking in a city dominated by another language. Interms even get hired from outside whose "working knowledge" of the other language is a few classes in high school, and the story is "as long as they can function, if they're the best candidate, their birthplace is immaterial."

The chain of newspapers I work for sent about a dozen people to Torino for the Winter Olympics. At least one-third, if not more, of the athletes speak the other language. About 40% of the athletes were women. Of the dozen or so reporters, I believe one was a woman. Of the dozen or so reporters, only one even spoke the other language, and not particularly well at that.

Tell me that makes sense.

Yes, the athletes speak English; but tell me you won't get better quotes from them (and perhaps a lot more one-on-ones, once the big pack has gone) by speaking their language. And tell me young female athletes won't be more at ease speaking to people OTHER than a massive pack of males in their 40s and 50s. But that's who gets to go, because that's who always goes.

I've had someone I knew asked for an interview by a reporter at our paper, news side. His response was, fine, but the interview will have to be in my language because while I speak English, I don't want to misspeak and not get my point across correctly because I'm not completely comfortable. A reasonable request. The reporter said, "Sorry, I don't speak it." End of interview request. Story therefore incomplete because of it.

I have issues with all of that, and the same arguments that are often dismissed about, say, a black beat writer covering the NFL being a great thing, apply here. There's a simpatico that's created right away, and if any of the natural apprehension between the two traditionally adversarial parties can be washed away from the get-go, it's a good thing.

 

But here's the rub: while we should hire far more reporters whose mother tongue isn't English, and better reach parts of the community that we currently miss (including a major portion of the entertainment pop culture), they're nearly impossible to find. It's simple; they just don't write English well enough. So what do you do? That's a pretty major project, even if it's one we should take on. There are a few TV reporters at the English-language stations who have fairly hefty accents. And while it's a bit off-putting at first, I can see the value in it. It's why I've always had standing offers from the other two dailies in town, those written in my first language. They have the same problem we do, although it's not, and probably shouldn't be, as much of a priority since they're in the majority.

The downside of all of it, for me at least, is that so many assignments are thrown my way because 1) it's about a woman and they figure they should send a woman or 2) the subjects speak the other language, which is my first language, so I draw the short stick. I'm not talking about the good assignments; I'm talking about the lame ones that really need to be spread around the staff. The rest of the staff is made up of white males ranging in age from about 50 to nearly 80, in one case.

At one point, my boss (who is a terrific boss, my age, enlightened, supportive, all that) threw 3-4 "women's" stories my way in a row.

My response was: "Dude, why are you throwing those my way just because I'm a woman? I don't know $hit about women's sports. I'm a baseball writer. Stop it, already."

Bottom line, here at least, is that there are so few jobs that open up it's barely even worth talking about minority hires. I'm the only new hire in our sports department in the last 20 years, and I've already been here 8 years.

Then again, scratch all that. It's because of the damn unions. :

 

In NFL and NBA press boxes (tables), the ones I know something about, I'd say that's way off. NBA Finals are going on right now. Look around that press room and you'll see far more than 10 percent minorities/females.

 

You are joking right? Far more than 10 percent? Give it a rest. If you take the television talking heads out of the equation at any big event -- and we are talking about print jobs I presume -- it is far less than 10 percent at any big event, closer probably to five percent.

The biggest myth going is that it is somehow easier to get a job if you are a minority or female than a white male. Yeah, you can tell that by the number of minorities and women in every sports department around the country. Ask yourself this, how many black sports columnists are there in, say, the top 100 markets? How about black sports editors? NFL, NBA and baseball beat reporters? Go find the answer then tell me how many advantages minorities have in landing top jobs.

 

So, Jayson Blair was passed up the ladder because he was a minority and Stephen Glass was talented?

Tell me I'm not crazy and not the only one who sees the double standard in that ridiculousness. Has anyone here even read Jayson Blair? I'm not saying he was Hemmingway, but he could spin a phrase. He's still a liar and a pointless human being. My point is, you are quick to point out how Jayson Blair got passed up the ladder because he was black, but you totally MISS that Glass, a white guy, was given the EXACT SAME TREATMENT. Glass was a kissup who also was passed along. He might have been talented, but he lied at every turn and no one checked him on it because HE WAS WHITE. And therefore was given the benefit of the doubt. Like I said, what's the difference?

I just think it's such a joke that some people on this board routinely point out the "privilege" of being a minority, but easily discount the inherit privilege of being white. The fact is, blacks, women, etc., have to be 10 times better than the average guy. Minorities might be the "in" thing to hire at some newspapers, but I think the lack of minorities in the upper echelon pretty much spells out that the ceiling comes fairly fast.

I'm not being naive, I've seen this in every newsroom where I have worked. Have I seen some bad minority hires? OF COURSE. And it pisses me off, because like I said, one bad minority hire unfortunately reflects on the whole group. If there is a bad white hire, no one would ever say, OK, let's stop hiring white guys. White people are viewed individually. Blacks, and other minorities, are always judged as a group.

 

14 female and four black sports editors at daily papers in the country. Damnit! Why are so many top jobs being given to minorities?!?!?!!?