You -- and you know who you are -- need not apply

Therein lies the rub. I couldn't agree more with the sentiments of both of you.

There was - perhaps still is - one newspaper I suspect doing just this kind of hiring. I hope I'm wrong, but the track record indicates that maybe I'm not crazy. For once.

 

I would definitely be raising a stink about it.

 

Or hers.

 

I honestly don't have a problem with this. Never have. Never will.

Newspapers cover a community. They need to do their best to reflect the community.

"Well, what if a newspaper was only looking for a white guy, the NAACP would be marching on its lawn."

Shrug.

Newspapers hire white people all the time. Who's to say that doesn't happen? Either way, it would be to the newspaper's detriment.

My position is that newspapers should take an active role in developing talented minority reporters and editors, even if they are a little less experienced at first.

Where I do put my foot down - and this is a mistake Gannett made all the time - is newspapers need to set a time limit for that inexperienced hire. If s/he doesn't reach a certain point by 6 months or a year, cut them loose and start over.

Gannett has a lot of minority journalists who are nothing but warm bodies - because they were too afraid to fire them for not doing their job.

That's a shame because that can reflect poorly on the dozens of minority reporters who were given a chance and succeeded.

 

I stand corrected. Nothing intentional -- oddly, I just never have had a female doc, come to think of it.

 

These days, newspapers don't hire much of anyone all the time.

 

When my uncle graduated from college he was passed over for a job for this reason- not being "diverse" enough. Thirty years later, the same thing happened to me at the same newspaper.

Its disappointing.

 

No. No. No. Where do you get off letting WOMEN into this discussion!?!

 

Yes Joe, it's good to not have the PC police after you. I've drawn their ire before in here.

 

Now on a serious note.

Fact of the matter is that editors are going to hire who they want. Fairness be damned. I have been in your shoes before. Many a time.

But here's what I've decided - Keep quiet. Keep quiet, work hard, concentrate on what you can control and let the work speak for itself. I take immense pride in my job, demand a lot of myself and constantly strive to challenge myself however I can. The toughest thing for me wasn't being passed up by writers of another gender/race all in the name of political correctness/diversity. It was knowing that this was going on, and knowing the same people in charge also weren't going to provide me with any direction or guidance, either (thereby leaving me to fend for myself and make sure I was progressing).

Once you realize that, and make sure you dominate your beats, and churn out quality work on a consistent basis (while also having people hand you amazing stories on a golden platter), then you gain a whole new kind of satisfaction. And you then don't care what higher-ups do, because no matter who they hire, the body of work you produce is all that matters.

Think of it as the ultimate scoreboard.

 

And here we have a large chunk of the equation. People who have never had to think about it don't think about it.

It doesn't occur to you to think about females being doctors because you've never had one. Just like it might not occur to middle-aged white newspaper editors to hire women or minorities if they weren't asked to stop and think about it.

People gravitate to what they know. It would be really easy for an EIC to hire a young SE who "reminds me of myself when I was that age." The EIC's gut instinct (which are generally derived from what we feel most comfortable with, as opposed to actual future-predicting abilities) may be to go with the young white guy.

It's not an active prejudice, but it's a cycle of unintended preferences that leads to more of the same if left unchecked. I think the answer is not to fill quotas for women or minorities, but to make hiring editors aware of unintended bias they may have.