Someone's Take on diversity in the newsroom...

I know that there are hires that are made as 'quota' hires. But it would appear, especially when it comes to internships, that the newspaper in question would do its due diligence and make sure the people they were bringing in were going to be the people they wanted to fill those positions in the first place.

As Ms. Hill implied, to do otherwise is to compromise any other minority who gets hired subsequently thanks to the inadequacies of their predecessors.

 

I once had a boss say - in my presence, foolishly enough - that he wished the resumes of females were required to come with photographs so he could tell how hot they were.

 

Any chance we could get a year on this?

 

2002

 

Cadet's in her 20s, if that helps.

 

Not for too much longer, SC!

 

In response to the age: For what its worth, I'm in the same boat.

In response to the year: Bloody hell.

 

I won't bore you with the anecdotes that I have; that I'm sure SC and all other women working in the business have. I'm fortunate in that I've never encountered a violent or potentially violent situation, like some of the stories I've heard from other female sportswriters. As a chick, you gotta be tough.

 

keeping in mind the shrinking number of jobs and the number of j-school students, there isn't a shortage of minority journalists in the job pool.

i'm with jemele. too many times, the people doing the hiring are too lazy to find the good ones.

in the place where i work, the current SE, city editor and copy desk chief all went to the same local university — AT THE SAME TIME! this kills me inside. half the rest of the news room went to said university, and that's where we get a majority of our interns as well.

less than a year ago, the paper ran a story on said college with the headline "white ... and getting whiter." it could have been a story on the newsroom.

but when you limit your hiring pool to whoever lives in a 10-mile radius, that's what you get.

anyone i've ever heard make this argument: "you can't pick a less qualified minority over a more qualified white person" — is white.

believe it or not, there are actually more qualified minority candidates sometimes. and every once in a while they get passed over for a talentless white person who goes to the college next door.

i've been in editors' offices where there are so many resumes for a job that i actually sat on a stack thinking it was a futon.

you telling me that there wasn't a qualified minority candidate in a stack of 500 resumes? or was there automatically a white person who could write that nutgraf at a 6th-grade reading level a little better than everyone else?

 

This is typical of many threads around here. People who have never been in a given situation are suddenly experts on that situation.

And hiring from within a small area has nothing to do with race; it has to do with the company saving money. Prospective candidates who live close come much cheaper. No moving expenses, and people who want to stay close to home or return home are more willing to take less money to do that.

 

Exactly! That's why I don't think this is a racial issue, it's a financial issue.

 

Same story could have been written 10 years ago.