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

It's easy to point out the obvious: sports departments are too white, too male and sometimes too old. The hard part is incorporating diversity without becoming a statistic used by both sides of the argument.

Unfortunately, there are horror stories about bad hires. With diverse candidates, they are magnified. As someone who hired diverse candidates and white males for years, I've found the percentages of good ones and bad ones -- regardless of race -- are about the same.

The key is recruiting good journalists of all races and genders is to start way below their junior year in college. If kids know in eighth grade they can become sports writers, it will help the market in 8-10 years. Same goes for incoming college freshmen.

 

ESPN's Page 2 lists 16 columnists , 10 white guys, 4 black guys and 2 women....

so about 60% of the staff is white guys. I'd say ESPN is doing a good job with their hiring.....of course that's only 1 website.

A few people have mentioned this, what do the enrollment numbers at the J-Schools look like?

 

First of all, using mug shots is not a great way to measure hiring, since there are dozens of people on the staff whose faces you'll never see -- probably more than those you will see. And second, web sites are not building from the ground up when it comes to columnists and reporters, because they're generally hiring already established talent, which comes from the same newspaper/magazine pool that everyone is saying is too white and too male.

Frankly, I'm not sure you can be too anything if you're hiring the best people regardless of gender, ethnicity and other considerations. But hey, what do I know?






The correct answer to that last question was: Not a damn thing. Congratulations to all of you who got it right, and to the rest, well, thanks for playing.

 

This is only one person's experience, but for what it's worth: in my grad school class of 2005 at a prominent journalism school, the majority of the class of 40 -- lets say about 27 -- were female. That's notable. There were four people of color, three female. The male and one of the women had aspirations to work in sports.

And, yes, I have had the experience, where a sports editor who I had done some good stringing work for, and met in person, told me he wouldn't consider me for a job because I'm a white male. That stung. I would infer, from what I've read on the board, that he never got to fill the position.

There are so few jobs out there in journalism, period. There are way too many applicants for sports writing jobs. Lots of people are going to be frustrated. In my j-school's jobs newsletter, I'd guess that 80-percent of the listings are for marketing, PR and advertising. Frustrating, for sure.

 

And that's the alpha and omega of the argument.

There are a pre-ponderance of white males in the field because there are a pre-ponderance of white males entering the field. Sheer numbers, folks.

Cadet's point about women and minorities getting hired at bigger papers makes that point as well. A talented minority of woman won't have to start in Snakes Navel; there's most likely a job at a 100k-plus -- a job that no white males without a platinum pedigree of blue-ribbon internships or a mentor working in a hiring role at that paper have a shot at filling.

 

Also another problem with the number of people who aspire to be sports reporters is too much for the demand of jobs.

Sports editors are dying for copy editors. There are plenty of opportunities there, especially for people of color and women. There would be more people in that pipeline on the road to managment, could help alleviate the issue of the lack of diversity in sports departments.

But its tough for a 22 year old coming out of school to realize that. I know I was fortunate to work in a pro newsroom at a young age and understood the dynamics of the industry and choose a career on the desk.

 

What if you don't want to work the desk and have no management aspirations? What if you just want to write?

 

This is being taken care of in a hurry, as the corporate chainsaw-wielders target the older, higher-paid employees. If you're 40-50, the odds of making it to retirement are simply off the boards.

 

Then you better bust your ass to set yourself apart. There's about 8 million of you out there, and you're all the same. And all looking for the same jobs.

 

If you don't at least have some desk skills, you're severely limiting your upward mobility (unless, like buck says, you're an f'in stud).

 

Here is what makes some people bitter: when the managing editor or executive editor tells the department head: "You can make a hire if the person is a minority. Otherwise, the job is frozen."

Instead of taking a pro-active yet honest stance, this is how some supposedly enlightened editors make their newsrooms more diverse.

It's lazy and doesn't do anyone any good when the diverse candidate gets put in a position to fail. But this happens all the time.

 

I agree with that whole-heartedly. I'm a desker myself. I just was curious as to what people here would tell someone with that mentality.