NABJ President Greg Lee calls out the journalism industry

As we move into spring training Richard Lapchick must be updating his blacks playing MLB stats for some spring articles.

 

Here, tucked away nine paragraphs into Greg's column, is the real root of the problem.

So it's not so much about hiring and retaining a diverse work force, it's that there's a small pool of diverse candidates to begin with. When you can be as specific as citing that there are exactly "238 black sports journalists who work in print and on websites in the nation," there's a systemic issue that your average department hiring manager can't adequately address when scurrying to line up interviews when an unexpected opening occurs.

Sure, you can create "a queen bee" of sorts by investing more time and resources by identifying and mentoring minority journalists who seem to rise above the others, but let's not confuse this with the problems professional sports leagues have in hiring minority coaches and managers. Nearly two-thirds of NFL rosters, for example, are comprised of black players, providing the league's 32 teams with thousands of potential job candidates for coaching openings. But as Greg points out, a paltry 7.6 percent of the entire sport workforce is black and less than twice that are deemed diverse.

The corporate monoliths -- with their deep pockets, high-profile jobs and cross-platform opportunities -- will always have the upper-hand in luring the best and the brightest of those 400+ diverse journalists, but the reality is that there just aren't enough in our industry to begin with.

I realize that professional organizations, including NABJ and APSE, have made great strides in identifying and promoting diverse candidates, but I can't help but wonder if they could be doing a better job themselves. Are they going beyond the J-school classes in search of potential journalists on college campuses? After all, it's probably the math major who's best equipped to devise the new-wave metrics in analyzing player efficiency. It's the pre-med student with a writing proficiency who can help readers understand what it means when the star athlete is hobbled by plantar fasciitis. And it's the business major who's best able to identify story opportunities on the business of sports.

Large media corporations are already doing this, but the professional organizations are the ones that will make a greater difference across the industry. Greg and others like him should be lauded for their great work with aspiring minority journalists, but perhaps they should also be devising strategies to find more minorities who haven't discovered journalism yet.

 

The population is 12.6% black, and black Americans are roughly 50% less likely to hold a college degree than white Americans. 7.6% is pretty much right in that sweet spot.

America has a black education problem, but sports journalism does not have a black hiring problem.

 

Rick is right. And, not only that, but the pool of African-Americans with the qualifications to land these jobs also have far better opportunities than taking a job in North Dakota, to work for peanuts, and share an apartment.

Even if they want to work in media, they're far more likely to want to work in broadcast.

 

Isn't there more than one group of people (African-American) that comprises minorities? Why not the discussion of women, Asians, etc.?

 

That's not Lee's mandate. The "B" isn't for "women" or "asians" or "latinos".

 

The numbers might be low, but in my experience, their jobs are pretty good. I have met exactly 4 black prep writers in 20-some years. I see that many major metro minorities at an NBA shootaround. My corner of the world could be completely off base, but that's what I've seen. I've recruited for high school openings and found young minority candidates who weren't interested or already had more prestigious offers. This isn't so much an answer as an observation. Are they not getting hired at the prep level? Or are they not interested in starting at that level?
It's interesting that Lee noted sports columnists. That's the position almost every writer wants.
What about prep writers? What about college stringers? What about guys grinding it out?
That's where it has to start, and that's where I've never seen much interest.

 

Has anyone done a breakdown of where the sportswriting jobs are in terms of rural vs. urban? I'm curious, because I'm wondering if small towns don't have a disproportionate number of the jobs.

 

How many Latino sportswriters are there in this county?

 

Good post.

 

Sports journalism does has a problem. Ideally, the numbers should reflect the society at large.

If part of the cause is that fewer blacks are interested in going to college or getting into sports journalism with a college degree that still is a problem.

 

"does has"?