NBA Editor/USA TODAY

Still posted on USA Today site. Any updates on who might fill it?

 

Friend of a friend says they're still taking resumes and conducting interviews.

 

why is this one so difficult to fill??

 

Am told they're limiting themselves to an artificially small talent pool.

 

artificially small?

 

Diversity. Candidates. Only.

(Seems like some sort of stereotype, though, if you ask me.)

 

Why don't they just put that in the posting, then? Or do they feel it's something to keep hush-hush and maybe even deny if called on it? If they're embarrassed about saying, up front, that they're going to fill this job according to skin color, then maybe they shouldn't be doing that in the first place. That's like getting in the wayback machine and dialing up the 1950s.

Has USA Today approached other positions this way? Do they really think this is OK, or even right-minded?

 

Is limiting the candidate pool a good way of letting the position stay dark without saying as much.

 

Interesting theory, but in this climate, I would think it's easier to 'fess up that a position is going unfilled for economic reasons than to risk the bad PR that could come -- should come -- from screening candidates according to race.

 

It probably has something to do with the number of black editors and reporters who took the buyouts last year. That got mentioned prominently in one article reporting on the buyouts. You would think that they'd have a huge applicant pool for any position and would easily be able to find a qualified candidate who fits whatever criteria they have in mind.

 

What bad PR? This is done all the time at papers all over the country and nobody blinks. Indeed, many will praise them for doing this, assuming it is true.

As you said, it shouldn't be that way, but there it is.