Minority sports reporters

I don't think anyone wants to be given a job because of the color of their skin, or because they are a woman or whatever. We all want to earn the job we have and know we werethe best person for it during the hiring process.

If the opposite happens, then what service is that doing to the writer, the paper or the community?

 

Here's my take and it's a pretty simple one.

The percentage of minorities I work with is nearly identical to the percentage of minorities I shared journalism classes with in college. That percentage in J-school was about 1/1000th of the minority percentage on my campus.

If people in a certain group aren't going to school to learn a certain trade, then you can bet your bottom dollar they aren't going to be available to hire professionally.

Why is that difficult for people to understand?

 

amen to that Terd

 

I'm amused that this discussion has not once considered the first post outside of its last sentence.


Here's two things about it:

1. Maybe the black photographer's "minoradar" is especially keen, or maybe he simply developed a good rapport with the tennis player by the nature of their mutual personalities. In other words, the argument may spring from a faulty premise.

2. The "see ya later, bro" handshake is unprofessional, regardless of skin color.

Otherwise, CW1975 makes the most salient points. Desire and effort counts more in the business than talent, always has, and if you let MEs decide for you what jobs you're gonna work, hope to get lucky - that's like writing a letter to the NYT editor once and planning to see it in print on Sunday. In the end, you've either done justice to the subject or you haven't, there is more than one way to get there, and these days, thank God, a young writer is witness to these various roads instead of having to emulate, oh Grantland Rice or something. Rice was fine, yes, but it's simply nice to see different attack angles at a subject.

 

I don't understand it. This is a false conclusion if I've ever seen one. I'm at a "major-major metro" and not one of us working on a Sunday paper went to J-School. Some have MBAs, but they're in English or History. The notion that journalists exclusively come from student papers and J-Schools is naive.

 

I'll back that. The trend, esp. given the economic outlook of the industry, is younger and cheaper, which almost always equals hungrier and tireless. Plus, at 33, you've almost certainly got the rest of your life going on - family, children, adult responsibilities - that almost always come before staking out an athletic office to find out a coaching candidate.

 

Here is my point, simplified even further:
People generally don't seek employment in fields they are not interested in. Sure, people get stuck working in jobs they don't like, but if you aren't interested in math, you don't show up looking for an accountant's job. If you don't  like books you don't decide to persue a job in library science.
Maybe it's a coincidence that the low number of minorities in my j-school classes equals the low number of minorities I work with. Maybe, but I doubt it.

 

Terd,

Depends on where ya took them J-School classes.

Some traditional black colleges have journalism programs. I'd guess a higher enrollment percentage there, wouldn't you?

 

Absolutely.
I certainly didn't attend school at Grambling or Southern, but our minority population, specifically African-American, was between 25 and 30 percent. That put the enrollment around 4,000 students and about 4 of those were in j school. Those numbers are nearly identical to the professional population of minorities on the job and the minority population of my state.
I don't find that coincidental at all.

 

I wouldn't really say that is "unprofessional". Countless times since I've started working in this field about 3 years ago, I'll go for a nornal handshake with a minority athlete and they turn it into the "see ya later, bro" handshake. I think they do it because a) they see I'm a minority like them and b) they see that I'm in my mid-20's and have a clue about the world they live it. It's all about comfort to them and I think that's what that Asian tennis player opened up to the black photog.

As a minority, I'm more than comfortable conversing with white people. I have to, it's part of my job. Now, would I hang out with white people by choice? Probably not and it's because of a comfort level and having things in common and you can apply that to the "diversifying" the newsroom thing. If said company has said paper in a region with a lot of minorities. It's a good chance said company is going to make sure said paper is properly stacked with enough minority reporters to handle stories dealing with those minorities.

I mean, how many times have we seen a paper with an opening in south Floriday, southwest Texas, and Arizona say Spanish is a plus. Kind of makes sense, doesn't it?

 

That's exactly my point. Why start at the podunk press when you can start at the mid-sized daily or, even better, the major metro? That's not a tough choice.

 

Prince,

For me, there's a business handshake and, when conducting business, I use it. If you're meeting somebody for the first time, you're a journalist, they're a subject, I think there's one smart handshake. The rest are inconsistent and misleading I'm going to give you a certain handshake, which means something.

And there a lot of newspapers out there that cover college football and basketball teams that 50-75 black, and not a black reporter can be found.