Where is the diversity among sports editors?

Actually, I don't.

 

Adding

this is recent memory
Garry D. Howard
Ruben Luna
Leon Carter
Lynn Hoppes
Bill Bradley
Patricia Mays
Neal Scarborough
Ruben Luna
Larry Starks
Julie Englebrecht (sp)
Terri Thompson
Collen McDaniel
KC Star name escapes me
Celeste Williams
Kathy Henkel
Tracy Dodds
Jorge Rojas

Adding
Emilio Garcia-Ruiz
Alan Whitt
Ronnie Ramos
Holly Lawton (KC Star)
Rachel Wilner Wettergreen

 

I graduated a pretty well-known and respected journalism school (if such thing isn't an oxymoron) within the last five years, and my graduating class of more than 50 had, by my memory, five black members. Of those five, I know one went to law school, one went into "diversity reporting" and two went into PR. None were sports journalists.

Meanwhile, at least four white guys are currently professional sports journalists from our class, myself included.

 

I don't think people are doing minorities (or anyone, for that matter) any favors by encouraging a career in newspapers.

Someone asks "Why isn't there more diversity in the newsroom?!?!?!" I respond, "Why aren't there more people in the newsroom?"

 

Perspective is one of my favorite words to use and I will here.

So what was the excuse before the industry-wide downturn? There was no diversity in newsrooms then and there is certainly none now (yes newsrooms are empty compared to a few years back).

The bottom line hiring practices not only in our industry but any industry is "Product of Our Environment". People hire those they are comfortable with, people they have met and associated with in professional and social circles.

I pride myself hiring from a very large pool of diverse and non-diverse talent. I also pride myself in hiring the best people possible that would fit into our newsroom.

 

If you wish to speak of "perspective," then I would respond that perspective has changed. The state of media hiring practices before the "industry-wide downturn" is irrelevant at this point. The "industry-wide downturn" is the paramount issue. I don't know that anyone is arguing that newspaper sports sections have had a stellar (or even respectable) minority hiring record for leadership roles.

But the rules are completely different than just a few years ago, as newsrooms are struggling just to hang onto the good people they have, regardless of race or gender. I like to think this will change in the future, but it seems those who should be leading in ideas regarding journalism's future are content to busy themselves with old arguments.

It's much easier for the Poynters of the world to continue to have their in-a-vacuum, Perfect World discussions, than it is for them to discuss the actual current realities of the business. Grimm's column could have resonated a couple of years ago. Now, it just reads like the average sports columnist mailing one in on a tried-and-true topic.

I stand by what I said: encouraging minorities, encouraging ANYONE, to go into newspapers, isn't exactly a good thing to do in 2010/2011.

 

But those who still want to pursue careers, they still need guidance.
So I don't need to encourage people to pursue careers because they are doing it on their own.
I sit on two internship application committees. You should see the number of applications that I come across.

Journalism programs nation wide are still seeing a significant increase in enrollment, despite the uncertain future of traditional paper and ink publications.
According to an article published in the Chronicle of Higher Education last month, applications to the Columbia School of Journalism rose 44 percent this year.
Among other schools to report large increases in enrollment in their journalism programs were the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which saw a rise of 30 percent, and Stanford University, which had a 24 percent increase in applications.
In addition to the rising number of graduate school applications, enrollment in undergraduate journalism programs has gone up 35 percent nationwide over the last 10 years, according to the article.

 

I tend to agree with Moddy here.
I have long held the belief that newsrooms should reflect the community in which they cover. That said, we've all witnessed the fast-tracking of an employee ... for the better or worse.
Talent is not a black and white issue, as Moddy stated. It's one of the issues employers face that can be shallow (counting faces) and deep (recruitment, fostering, training) at the same time.
And, I would also warn, thinking diversity challenges are unique to newsrooms, and to extrapolate it to sports departments, would be specious thought.
Every company or government agency struggles with the issue.

(FWIW we're missing a big one on the list: Rob King, EIC of espn.com, is a minority)

 

Diversity is not a term that is limited to race lets be clear with that.
Race, gender, class, religion, etc.
And fishwrap is right, this issue is a problem in every industry.

But I will also say this: Our industry only surveys itself based up race and gender. There is no mechanism to factor other areas of diversity.

 

Just to play devil's advocate here, and to ask the money question: What does having a minority as a sports editor (or higher) do to change things or make things any different than if/when a white guy is in such a slot?

Anything, really?

This seems somewhat akin to a thread I started when I first came on here and asked what, if any, differences there were between how a male sports editor and a woman sports editor might work and/or run a section.

It was argued by most at that time that there really isn't much difference, if any at all. I'm not sure I agree with that, in either that case, or this one. But the concept seems to be at least somewhat the same, unless you really are hiring minorities just to hire minorities.

That said, I would refer to Versatile's post for some of the reason behind any lack of minorities in high places in journalism. There are less people in general in the business these days, hence fewer minorities, and fewer qualified and interested minorities (and others).

It makes sense to me, and at the risk of sounding politically incorrect, I'm not sure diversity, on any level, really matters very much right now. There are just too many bigger and much more important fish to fry if this business is to even survive, let alone thrive in some ideal and idealistic environment.

 

I give one example from my own work experience.

When there are meetings on storylines, some editors dont understand some cultural aspects of stories. I have heard white editors say things like thats not possible. However, those things such and such has happened in my experience being a black man. You lose rich perspectives if you dont have those voices around to give you a broader perspective.

I dont want to say the exact story because we are working on it now. It took one white guy to say that stuff does happen, but the others were clueless.

It is important to different experiences in your leadership to try to broaden and give better coverage, whether its race, age, class or religion.

Do you think having an editing leadership of 5 middle age white as a good thing to have in your coverage. You would get the same monolithic thinking. Isn't journalism about telling stories and providing rich context?

Or are we just content feeding the beast and throwing slop together since we losing staff and space?