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diversity?!?

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by PaperDoll, Sep 8, 2007.

  1. Ace

    Ace Well-Known Member

    Why do you think Gannett gets a bad rap?

    It's because of stuff like this. Diversity is a great idea. Holding a paper that serves an area that is 95 percent white to the same stands as one that is very racially mixed isn't such a great idea.
     
  2. JD Canon

    JD Canon Guest

    i know this may make less sense considering the hiring climate and freezes and understaffing, but diversity is not just about representing minorities to sell papers and make money.

    one of our responsibilties as gatekeepers of information is to portray people. sometimes, responsibilities are hard to live up to, especially in tough financial times. but that doesn't mean you abandon them completely.

    case in point: when you've got a bunch of white people in a room together, sometimes they decide to write stories with this kind of jist — "housing has become so cheap, even the mexicans are buying homes."

    a couple years ago, that story ran in news at a place i used to work with a big photo of two hispanic people smiling in front of their home. i did not see the story until i was proofing the first press run at like 1 a.m. by then, it was too late.

    i was obviously offended that the editors at my paper (all white) would be dumb enough to think hispanics owning their own homes was a new trend in the area and worthy of a story. i am a mexican from the general area, and all but one of my aunts and uncles, as well as my parents, owned their own homes before the story. so did my grandparents and great grandparents. my great grandparents owned a ranch on acreage.

    if the story was about people with lower incomes being able to buy homes because of lending rates, then write that. but not all poor people are mexican. and not all mexicans are poor. the story only fed the negative stereotypes that divide people.

    a couple weeks later, the paper announced it was having diversity training, and everybody groaned. they, of course, went into it with closed minds and came out the other end no different than before.

    but when you have one group that is all white, they can't value the thoughts and opinions of any other group. there's no voice there to speak to their validity. if there was an all-hispanic staff, it wouldn't value white thought without someone to emphasize its importance.

    the reality: our audience is multi-cultural and multi-racial. and in order to live up to our responsibility portraying people, there needs to be a somewhat multicultural media. that means we have a responsibility to recruit and develop minority journalists.

    no one says it's easy. but nobody tells anyone that covering a game, writing a sidebar and a column and coming back to layout your section (or any of the other horror stories we hear about at newspapers) is easy. it's part of the job. you accept it when you join the industry.
     
  3. terrier

    terrier Well-Known Member

    Why aren't conservatives as well represented in newsrooms as perhaps they should? Look at all the conservative college kids who, instead of going to work for a weekly or podunk daily and working their way up through the ranks, go on to jobs at conservative opinion journals or think tanks (and, BTW, make a good deal more $ than most young'uns in the newspaper business do).
    You can't make conservatives want to go into the newspaper business (or blacks, Latinos, etc.) if they think they have better options elsewhere.
    And this alleged liberal media bias is a lot of garbage. The people who make the improtant decisions (what gets covered and what doesn't, who gets hired and who doesn't, etc.) don't number too many libs among them.
     
  4. Joe Williams

    Joe Williams Well-Known Member

    Had you aimed your final paragraph a little higher -- at the publisher's level -- I might agree. But by and large, newsroom management is draw from the ranks of newsrooms, so hiring and coverage decisions indeed get made by those inclined to be left-leaning.

    As for your earlier points, newspapers seem quite willing to bend over backwards to find racial minorities to hire, but don't expend anywhere close to that effort seeking a conservative voice. And that's where they ignore a large part of their communities/audience/readership. In part because it wouldn't make them feel as warm and fuzzy to seek out the right-leaning.
     
  5. fishwrapper

    fishwrapper Active Member

    Joe, is that drum you keep beating next to you?
    It seems awfully close-to-hand and perhaps wearing a bit. ;)
     
  6. DanOregon

    DanOregon Well-Known Member

    Are conservatives as open-minded as lefties and does that explain why there are so few conservatives in straight journalism?
     
  7. 2underpar

    2underpar Active Member

    I have a question -- how many minorities that want to work in journalism aren't working in journalism? My experience is that there's more demand than candidates. is that a fair assessment?
    last opening we had I was told there were no female applicants and only one minority applicant? hard to hire if they aren't applying.
     
  8. fishwrapper

    fishwrapper Active Member

    How in the world is that quantifiable?
     
  9. Mighty_Wingman

    Mighty_Wingman Active Member

    Man, it was so silly of me to turn down all those think-tank jobs and become a mere newspaper writer instead. It's that easy: If you're a Republican journalist, the American Enterprise Institute is just beating down your door. No doubt.

    And the idea that there are more "conservative opinion journals and think tanks" than left-wing versions of same strikes me as unlikely.
     
  10. terrier

    terrier Well-Known Member

    Go red and collect the green, Wingman. The righties definitely pay better - I don't see George Soros putting his millions into newspapers, opinion journals or think tanks.
    Joe, you're correct in saying newsroom management in drawn from the rank and file. They may be liberal at heart, but if they want to move up in the world (or just please their conservative bosses), they have to bend over backwards to prove they're not liberals.
    Liberal journalists, actually, sometimes get so scared of the scarlet L (i.e., during Clinton's impeachment or the runup to the Iraq War) that they'll attack even harder than conservatives. Remember. it was the New York Times that broke Whitewater, and it was an NYT reporter who went to prison to protect the Dick Cheneys and Scooter Libbys of the world.
     
  11. Mighty_Wingman

    Mighty_Wingman Active Member

    In the runup to the 2004 election, Soros gave $3 million to the Center for American Progress and $5 million to MoveOn.org. These aren't think tanks?

    Again, the idea that there aren't richly funded lefty think tanks -- or that "wingnut welfare" is the reason there aren't more visible Republicans in newsrooms -- is absurd on its face.
     
  12. terrier

    terrier Well-Known Member

    People interested in a career in journalism aren't going to CAP or MoveOn. Soros isn't into publishing, and big media corporations are not going to touch anyone who has those on his/her resume. There is much more (and better-paying) conservative media infrastructure than on the left.
     
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