Plain Dealer lawsuit

I'll be holding Mitch albom's luggage at the airport before YOU get hired there, pal....

 

Oh, yeah?

 

Ace, your George Bush quote is TREMENDOUS. I hadn't heard that one and I think it's hilarious.

 

Sadly, it's also true.

Yours is good, too, Marty.

 

Marty, I must admit having never heard of your lawsuit until this post, but I'm glad you went through with it as long as you did. More such lawsuits need to be filed (unfortunately) because papers like the Boston Globe and New York Times and countless others are going WAY overboard in hiring female sportswriters.

I can understand a need for more African-American writers in the sports section (there are so few, and so many athletes are African-American). But I've never understood the need to increase the number of female sports writers (at the expense of far more-talented males) when newsrooms are already, by an large, well-represented by both genders.

 

I'm just guessing, but maybe papers want to do a better job appealing to female readers?

FWIW, in my experience, women who land sports writing jobs are -- on average -- better than guys.

It's probably because no woman is going to fall into sports writing as a career. They have to be serious about. Guys can get into it because they "like sports."

I like architecture. Doesn't make me an architect.

 

I don't believe African-American sportswriters should be hired at a faster rate because the majority of athletes in particular sports are African-Americans. I hate to believe in 2006 that the ability of sports reporters to relate to any particular race or gender athlete should be based on their own race or gender.

I also don't believe females make for superior sportswriters. I have read excellent female sportswriters, terrible female sportswriters and everything in-between, which is the same as I would say about male sportswriters.

The hiring of sportswriters, or any profession, should be based on talent. And I believe strongly if that is done, it will be reflect the race and gender mix of the talent pool. If 10 percent of all prospective sportswriters are female, 15 percent are black and 75 percent are white, than sports departments should reflect that.

Am I wrong?

 

The mix of the department/paper would ideally reflect the makeup of the area or at least the readership (not the athletes you cover or the makeup of the applicants).

Of course, you aren't going to have 50 percent females in sports.

 

I'm asking, not arguing:

Is there any evidence at all that women sportswriters attract women readers? Women who would never pick up a newspaper to read about the Clippers might do so because a woman wrote about them?

Women are being hired because they were under-hired in the past. It balances the staff, it balances the coverage, and it brings newspapers into step with the rest of society. But it's hard to believe that female sports readership would dramatically increase as a result.

I would be thrilled to hear evidence to the contrary.

 

Sports stuff women care about ... like uniform fashion and the size of some dude's cup?

Or would it just be all about cheerleaders? (/super serious voice)

 

I don't know that anyone is saying readership would increase dramatically, but the argument is that people want the paper to reflect them.

Honestly, I have seen no first-hand examples of women saying they read the paper because of a female writer. They may cheer -- or complain -- because of how women's sports are covered, though.

 

I don't believe women's sports is better covered by a woman or men's sports better covered by a man. And how can anyone say that the gender mix in a particular area should be reflected in the sports department?

Does that mean 10 percent of all prospective sportswriters are female, but 50 percent of the population is female, that 50 percent of the sportswriters should be female?

I'm sorry, but the closer we get to a color- and gender-blind society when it comes to stuff like this, the better. It's idealistic, but shouldn't we strive for that? I see no reason a guy can't write expertly about Serena Williams and a woman can't write expertly about Derek Jeter.