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

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Joe Williams, Apr 21, 2008.

  1. outofplace

    outofplace Well-Known Member

    My point.


    Your head


    I had hoped that it was clear enough. I was talking about the part where she was talking about assumptions, not the part that dealt with factual information.

    Try reading a little closer next time. Thanks.
     
  2. Peytons place

    Peytons place Member

    I think using a doctor analogy doesn't work. Journalists are hardly making life-and-death decisions, and there's a whole different set of standards. I think diversity hires in a news media situation are a good idea, not because of blacks understanding the black community, or Asians understanding the Asian community, but because newspapers project a public image, and it could be important for minority readers and women readers to know that they are represented in some way by those gathering, delivering and deciding the news.
     
  3. buckweaver

    buckweaver Active Member

    Story of your life. ::)

    She's talking about unintended bias, not accusing hiring editors of making assumptions or being discriminatory. And, yes, the facts back up her overall point, which clearly you've disregarded in your haste to be snarky about whatever "assumptions" you think Cadet had in mind -- none of which she made.
     
  4. Mystery_Meat

    Mystery_Meat Guest

    Same job, same experience level? Women across the board make less than men and blacks less than whites because women and minorities as a whole don't have as much of a work history, in overwhelming part due to hopefully-now-long-gone institutional hiring biases. Why does it take so long for a surge in female/minority executives? In large part, because only recently has there been a large qualified pool, as a result of more going to college and more getting advanced degrees, and more moving up into that position, all good things of course.

    But is there anything out there that compares people at similar jobs and experience levels and breaks down salary vis a vis race and gender?
     
  5. buckweaver

    buckweaver Active Member

    Absolutely, MM. Fact: Women earn 77 cents on every dollar that a man makes.

    And yes, it exists across all educational/experience levels. It's not just because women/minorities "haven't had enough time" to bridge the gap. That's a bogus argument.

    http://www.bpwusa.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=4419
     
  6. buckweaver

    buckweaver Active Member

    And the "only recently are more going to college" and "more getting advanced degrees" argument doesn't fly, either. Women outnumber men at post-secondary institutions across the country, and have for a number of years.

    And re: the "longer work history" argument, that doesn't explain why women just out of college in the 21st century still get paid less than their equally qualified male counterparts ... when neither of them have much of a work history to go on.

    That argument might have worked in 1965. It can't work today, yet the wage gap persists today. No, it's not because of "qualifications" or "work history."
     
  7. Mystery_Meat

    Mystery_Meat Guest

    That's closer, to be sure, but still pretty inexact. What are those degrees in? If white men, for whatever reason, are disproportinately getting degrees in higher-paying jobs than women and minorities, that's going to skew the stats, wouldn't it? And it still doesn't match up people in similar jobs with similar experience and comparing their pay. Admittedly, that might be pretty hard to pull off, say for example doing a study on copy editors at 25,000-50,000-circulation newspapers with 3-5 years experience, and that's without other variables to factor in (wage history anomalies, cost of living, the like).

    I'm just pointing out that there's a truth in the main stat (women get paid less on average than men, and blacks get paid less than whites) that may not hold up when you narrow it down to specifics.
     
  8. Mystery_Meat

    Mystery_Meat Guest

    Same degrees? If women are getting degrees in lower-paying fields, then they can outnumber men 10-1 on college campuses, and it'll still taking them a long time to bridge the gap.
     
  9. Mystery_Meat

    Mystery_Meat Guest

    Then that's obviously wrong. Not sure why it's that way, but you're a hell of a lot closer to the situation than I.
     
  10. buckweaver

    buckweaver Active Member

    While you may be right -- I don't think you are, because I think a study across all educational levels is broad enough to count for most "specifics" -- it seems like an awful small nit to pick to challenge the overall stat, which is quite indisputable.

    And with as many Ramblin' Wreck engineering grads as I know who are working in unrelated fields like insurance and accounting, I find it hard to believe that a study of "highest-paying degrees" would yield accurate results on that anyway. The fact is, it exists ... in all fields, in all degrees, at all levels.

    I think 77-cents-on-the-dollar speaks enough to the realities of the wage gap on its own, especially when it exists across all educational levels and all fields.

    The gap doesn't exist -- and won't be closed -- because a majority of men with engineering degrees are being compared to a majority of women with social services degrees, that's for sure.
     
  11. pallister

    pallister Guest

    Whether someone has a degree or not shouldn't matter. Experience and how well they do their job should. And, in many cases, those two things aren't linked.
     
  12. joe king

    joe king Active Member

    Anyone who thinks this is rare is mistaken and/or naive.

    I've mentioned this on SportsJournalists.com several times before, but here goes again (indeed, I have actually copied and pasted a previous post). I've been told on four separate occasions by the person doing the hiring not to bother applying for a job unless I was a minority -- before I had even sent in a resume. The only reason I wasn't qualified for these jobs was the color of my skin (because they hadn't seen my qualifications). Please point me to any minority journalist in the past 30 years who has been told flat out by the people doing the hiring not to bother applying for a job because he or she is a minority.

    When it first happened, I remember thinking that I appreciated the SE being up front with me so I wouldn't waste my time getting sutff together for a job I had no shot at. The more I thought about it, though, the more frustrating it became. Like everyone else, I would hope to be judged on my qualifications, on my ability and experience. If there are several qualified candidates and you want to diversify your staff with a minority, that's great. It just seems to me that turning away someone who might be the best candidate for the job (before you know otherwise) simply because he is not a minority is a waste and is not the way to put out the best possible product. I would think you'd want to enlarge the pool you are choosing from rather than shrinking it.


    As far as making a stink over it, no one's going to do that. First of all, it's your word against theirs, unless maybe you can find a bunch more people who have been told the same thing. Second of all, if you sue and it hits the media, you will end up associated with the white supremacists of the world, because that's who will come out in support of you. And I damn sure wouldn't want that. Heck, I'm not even 100 percent sure what they did is against the law (newspapers are private businesses). And try getting someone to hire you -- or even interview you -- when you've sued because you didn't get a job.
     
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