Whitlock hits it out of the park

Where are all the journalists who graduate from the historically all-black colleges?

 

I help out with a minority journalism thing almost every year by leading a class. We had an impressive bunch this year, the best being a young Hispanic woman. I couldn't help thinking as she was speaking, "Nah, this chick is going to law school. We'll never see her again until she's arguing a case in Federal Court."

I do think that other, better-paying occupations compete against us for the brightest minorities, and the kids know this. When someone tells them that they need to be willing to start in Podunk, they think: "Why the hell should we?"

 

It's interesting that we're debating this within the journalism profession (obviously our area of interest). But would I be way off base if I suggested that nearly every single business in America is dominated by white males?

Of course it is. So I'm not necessarily sure why we need to single out our own, or apply unreachable standards in the quest to ... what, exactly?

We already know we're a bunch of hypocrites.
Check out all the "no comments" issued by the bosses whenever something hits the fan in a newspaper. We want people to cooperate with us and take our calls, it's our lifeblood. But when shit happens on our watch, suddenly we're "unavailable for comment."

 

One standard that I hear pretty often is that the newspaper should reflect the community, both in the people it covers and people it employs.

So if your city is 20 percent African-American and 25 percent Hispanic and your sports department is all white males, you aren't reflecting your community well just from appearance sake (Lord knows people don't need much of a reason to turn their nose up at the paper) and you may not be tapping into what makes folks tick, either.

 

Thank you, Jason. A nice counter for Scoop, the raving idiot.

Whitlock's logic is much more thoughtful and insightful. Jackson is basically b_tching that the white male is pushing everyone else down.

 

There's one on this board who posts under his own name.

 

I'm not a Whitlock fan...but boy, did he let Scoop have it, and rightfully so.

 

One problem with that, Ace... the talent pool just isn't balanced enough to support that. I agree that diversity is important and I buy into the arguement that it will aid in tapping into all the stories that readers want to see.

Not so sure it matters from a standpoint of appearances. How many readers even know the demographic makeup of their local paper's staff? I'm really not sure that they care. I know it's not 100 percent true, but in general I think readers notice headlines before bylines. I think they look for the subjects that interest them rather than the writer of the piece, much moreso than those of us in the business do.

Of course, I could be wrong. Happens once in a while. ;D

 

I was giving you a reason I have heard for the quest. I do know that if we run too many photos of black people in the paper (perhaps in an overzealous spurt of mainstreaming) we get complaints from white people -- seems the paper doesn't reflect them very well and they don't like it.

 

I'd love to hear more about this, Jason.
When they're speaking up, what are they saying? How are they saying it? I'm interested in your point about them not truly wanting diversity -- but, playing devil's advocate, could say that newspapers aren't really looking for many fresh ideas from anybody.

 

I'm cool with all races, genders and creeds but I'll be deep in the cold, cold ground before I ever hire a Red Sox fan.

Dammit, I already have hired one.


Excellent column, by the way, and a wonderful counterpoint to Scoop Jackson's steaming pile of shit. I mean, "You have a better chance of making it to the NBA than becoming a sports writer?" My god.

 

Dead on.
I was told a few days ago that two black female sportswriters wouldn't apply for my paper's open position because, according to their friend who does work here,"Why should they?"
Because they graduated college a year ago and don't have jobs yet, that's why.