Minority sports reporters

Ding, Ding, Ding! You couldn't be more right, at least with Gannett. Their hiring process is crap.

 

What's a Gannett job bank?

Whenver possible, try not to go through job banks and HR departments and such and send your stuff directly to the SE or whomever will be doing the hiring.

With big corporations, you may have to do this.

With a sports writing or editing job, you need to go straight to the sports editor or whomeve else will do the hiring.

 

Personally, I think if any manager tells you they needed to hire a minority is just race-baiting. That is unprofessional and a way to pit races against one another. A higher up at a major paper said the same thing to a white friend of mine. But what they didn't say is the minority they were targeting had more experience and was just plain better.

All the higher up had to say was that they had found someone more qualified, instead the person blamed it on filling a minority requirement. I hope some of you all know that managers routinely do this to people because they don't know how to tell them the truth -- that maybe you weren't as good as the other person or that all things were equal, but they were a minority and that made them a slightly better candidate.

What sucks is that because there is this fallacy that newspapers are hiring minorities by the truckloads -- I think the newsroom numbers prove how false that is -- and so when a minority walks into a newsroom there is an automatic assumption they are not as qualified.

Does that happen? Sure. But don't tell me every white person who has a newspaper job is the most qualified candidate that can be found. Another version of affirmative action is people getting jobs because they went to school with the editor, played golf with the AME, or has some kind of family tie in. Oh, but I forgot, that's just connections.  :-\

 

Never have I read a more fitting end to a thread. Well done CW1975

 

I agree with that last part. The idea that we live in a meritocracy is a total fallacy, and I don't begrudge anyone getting a job by any means. Hell, I know someone who pimps her (dubious) Hispanic heritage shamelessly on job apps. I don't blame her. I would do the same. It's a tough business, and every edge helps.

That said, let's not have our heads in the sand. No, newspapers aren't hiring minorities by the "truckloads" but that's because there aren't truckloads of minorities out there to hire. No, numbers haven't reached parity in most markets yet, but that's precisely why there's an intense and aggressive virtually everywhere to hire and develop minority journalists.

 

It's one thing for them to use that as an excuse to explain why you didn't get a job you've applied for. It's another for them to tell you before you've even had a chance to show them how qualified you are.

 

On their website that lists available positions, you have the option of submitting your resume.  Supposedly this helps as I'm told that Gannett will look to the inside and then to their bank of applicants, or at least will give these preferential treatment.  Obviously when a specific paper that I'm interested in pops up, I sent a hardcopy portfolio to that paper, but if a few minutes of time could possibly give me a slight edge, there's not much to lose.

Except I'm not a minority.  I'm tempted to swear off Gannett altogether, but when you wanna move up, it's hard to ignore the papers they have.  

When I was told by the former co-worker at this paper that he'd seen the email from Gannet corp. asking if I met any minority guidelines, I contemplated pushing the issue of discrimination but decided against it.

I'm certainly not arrogant enough to think my shit's so good that the only reason my application did not move further up the chain was because I'm not a minority, but I could spill more than one story of suspicious hires.  And really, that's a problem.   Some of the more aggresive hiring policies cast an artificially poor light on legitimately qualified minority candidates.

 

We've been through this argument a lot.

Chickwriter had a real good take.

Look, it sucks to think you don't get a fair shake at a job.

But if you keep at it and have the talent, good things will happen for you.

 

I couldn't hold my self back from responding to this, so here it goes:

I don't think being a minority, and I am one, really matters in the grand scheme of things. I've applied to about 10-12 jobs in the past two years and have yet to even receive an interview request. I just think there were more talented people out there for those jobs. Now if they were a minority and talented, then more power to them. But being a minority doesn't guarantee anything, though to this day I firmly believe I am at my current job because I am a minority. Trust me, I don't think it's fair that talented people are passed over because they are white. If you have the talent, then you deserve your fair chance at a job. But unfortunately some companies don't see it that way and it's a shame.

 

I find it hard to believe a newspaper organization would flat-out say they wouldn't even look at your application if you weren't a minority, but I guess stranger things have happened. What happens more often though is, I've come across several white males who, if a female or minority ended up getting a position they wanted, chalked it up to the fact that the department wanted to "diversify." I even went to college with a moron who said "I wish I was black" after a collegue at the student paper got a great job right after graduation. He seemed to be forget that she was also a great writer, the editor of the paper and had the best GPA in journalism school, while he barely managed to maintain a C average.

 

Do me a quick favor people. Look at the staff of your sports department and post with how many minorities are in your shop. I'm just curious to see where all these minority hires are being made.

 

Not in rural Oklahoma (the last two places I worked).