Sports Editor, Albany Herald (Ga.)

Okay, I deleted my last post. It was out of bounds and I'm sorry. I just feel like I've been to war with Eck through the years, and I don't like how this thread has portrayed him. I'm sure we're all good guys (yes, even Flip and Ralph). It's obvious I just need to step away for awhile.

Sorry to have lost my cool. If you knew me, you'd say, 'Well, that's just Hack.' I've never met a soapbox I didn't like.

Have a good one.

 

No one despair, Prhack and I have made nice via PMs. In fact, we are now going to name our children after each other. So hopefully this wonderfully entertaining thread can now be about, you know, the job.

 

Damn. And to think we were probably just a few posts away from a wet t-shirt contest to decide who was right.

 

I'm glad we're all getting along now. I have never been accused before of not being able to "handle" a job, so I probably got more defensive than I should have. The bottomline is they need to find a new sports editor here, so if anyone has any questions about it, let me know.

 

Just a heads up... From what I hear, they are looking to put this one to bed fairly soon (within a week?) and already have some quality candidates. Anyone interested would probably be well-served to get resumes in ASAP.

 

Though this does not apply to me, some may need to heed this warning. While the paper is fine and the staff is hard working, the front office needs some help in reality. Minority representation in a town that is heavily minority is non existtent. It's a shame because the paper has a lot of potential to be better than it is. It's not a Marietta Daily Journal situation but minorities may feel differently.

 

Thanks for the update Scoop Jackson.

I know the past sports editors very well and their hirings have zero to do with race. It's a matter of who applies, and getting quality minority candidates isn't an easy thing. If you wanna buy into that crap that small papers just don't want to hire minorities, go right ahead, but the truth is, most papers want *qualified* minority candidates so badly, that those candidates don't have to work in places like Albany.

I don't know who you are, and maybe you've got a real good reason for saying what you did, but to throw around a comment like that seems extrememly dangerous and utterly uninformed. And while you're touting the racial injustices in Albany, go ahead and see what percentage of minorities are in the room at any given post-game news conference. It aint many.

That's a shame, for sure, but it has little to do with racism.

 

Floyd's right on the mark. There are a lot of factors that play into the makeup of a newsroom at a place like Albany. But one of those factors IS NOT the leadership there. I don't know about Marietta but to try to lump Albany in with it just isn't true.

 

I'll add, too, that Boots' ill-informed comments don't make it any easier to get minorities to apply. If your concern really is to make sure the black population of Albany is well represented, telling minorities to think twice about applying seems like a piss poor way of doing it.

 

Look, you are a newbie so I'm going to let you get away with the cheap shots. I know the past editors there very well, probably better than you but we'll leave it at that. At any rate, you can say what you want to but the bottom line is the newsroom is very vanilla and there is absolutely no reason for that in 2006.
I personally have seen several qualified applicants who were minorities, not get hired at this outpost.
There are some things you can't defend. This fact is one.

 

Which editors have you known there? There have only been two sports editors there in the past 12 years: Steve Ellis and Daniel Shirley

 

The entire industry is a sad statement on minority hiring (and I always find it interesting how media members criticize professional/college teams for the same failings). I will say during my time as sports editor that I had a difficult time attracting minority applicants when we had openings, and I can only speak for the sports department. Not sure if boots is talking about the entire newsroom or the sports department when he speaks of "several qualified applicants," but that simply wasn't the case in the sports department.
We hired the best people we could regardless of race, and if you look at the section we had and where those very talented people are now and where they're going, I would say we did a good job.
We had several minorities who worked for us as part-timers while they were in college there, but as far as full-timers that was a real struggle.