Plain Dealer lawsuit

Don't waste the beer....just throw a Diet Coke.

 

Then, on that angle, consider me corrected and wrong. I think a lot of what I say still applies, but the PD wisely did not use that job as a training ground for women.

 

If this is an example of his writing ability, I'd think his not getting hired had more to do with ability than any sort of racial or gender preferences.

http://www.nflcflfutures.com/NFLCFLFuturesSpotlights/osgood.html

 

I don't know Marty and have never read one word of his work, but I do know he is correct when he says some jobs are not open to white males. I have shared my story in this regard with this board on several occasions, but here goes again: I have had the editor doing the hiring tell me flat out not to bother applying for a job unless I was a minority or a woman. That has happened four separate times.

The thought of a lawsuit like Marty's crossed my mind on a couple of those occasions, but I didn't want to end up the butt of jokes -- as Marty has -- or, worse, accused of racism. I don't know if he's good enough to work for the Plain Dealer (dammit), though I suspect he is, on preps, but I do know he's a braver man than I.

 

Still no one has answered my question. If all these women and minorities are being hired over more qualified white males, where are all of them?

 

Apparently at the Plain Dealer, because I've only ever worked with one other woman in my ENTIRE career.

 

yawn.....

 

Why don't you post some of your stuff, too, splat?

 

I think my long post on a previous page actually answers this to some extent. Women and minorities sportswriters are not in a lot of places because they're not slotted into them by internship coordinators. I've watched, for example, two journalism students of equal output and writing quality, one male, one female. The male gets a modest daily internship. The female goes to Poynter. I've seen many pud and close to pud jobs receive apps from nothing but white males.

It's not how I feel, but what I've seen.

Do you many of you honestly think that editors don't want to hire minorities and women? I assure you: They do. There is integration in the industry, but it's almost solely at the top of the business, with an eye using that diverse voice in a column eventually.

 

58 posts??? This topic apparently brings out a lot of emotion in sportswriters.

To the person who posted one of my stories, that's fine. I have nothing to hide about my work. But don't forget that when you send in your clips, you send in your best work.

I don't have anything available anymore because what I sent in to the PD was now seven years ago and I haven't felt the need to keep that stuff.

I've written quite a few features on NFL players for an NFL website, so just for the hell of it, I have a few samples you can look at if you want.

But to those who criticize, as one poster suggested, why don't you show your work?

It's really not about that. The whole point here is that the quality of my work was irrelevant.

Anyway, here are a few features I wrote for nflhs.com. It is a website that celebrates the relationship between high school football and the NFL, so the features make that connection.

http://www.nflhs.com/news/playersspotlight/antoniogates_10192004_sim.asp

http://www.nflhs.com/news/playersspotlight/neilrackers_10112006_jjc.asp

http://www.nflhs.com/news/playersspotlight/johncarney_11222006_lcb.asp

 

Marty, your two explanations of the situation at the PD appear to contradict each other, and undermine any suggestion that you, personally, were passed over based on your race:

But in post #33, which I can't seem to get to in order to quote, you said that you were excluded from the prep job that you were seeking specifically on the basis of your race and gender.

If the gist of your complaint is that 10 minority women in a row were hired, and that this must mean that the PD wouldn't take you for the prep job you sought due to your being a white male, then why were none of those minority women assigned to the prep job? How did their hiring prevent you from attaining the prep job, if they didn't take it?

 

Hey, Navigator!

I can understand your confusion.

I wasn't just a prep beat writer at the News-Herald. I covered the Indians and Browns extensively. I covered the Indians about 35-40 regular-season games a year, including road trips throughout the country. I also covered all their home and road postseason games from 1995 through 1999, including ALCS and World Series.

Though I was the senior head prep writer, I never believed that's all I was qualified for, but I was certainly more than willing to take a prep job at the PD. When a couple prep openings occurred at the PD, my view is that they only considered females and African-American males with the intention of giving them more prominent beats.

I know of more than one PD high school beat writer who complained about their lack of opportunity to move up to a better beat, but I certainly won't name any names.

I would rather not write more on the subject because I know many of the people involved at both papers. I hope you understand that. But I strongly believe there were and still are several sportswriters at smaller papers in Northeast Ohio who are qualified to work at the PD and would desperately love to do so.

By the way, the News-Herald isn't a tiny rag. It's a 50,000-circulation daily and the ninth-largest paper in Ohio. We covered the Indians, Browns and Cavs at home and on the road. We were one of only three papers that did.