APSE president's message

[Drip]

Vesatile, YF already tipped his hand about media equaling libruhl. I wish the other shoe would drop (Libbruhls/media sure cared about diversity inthe case of _____)

Bingo. And after all his years in newsrooms, he's qualified to make such statements.

Back to APSE, Phil is good people. But he's in a tough spot with the keynote given the state of the industry.

LOL. I'm sure the guys & gals at your paper who cover sports, the cops beat, City Hall, education, and business are all qualified to comment about those fields, right?

And, I guess if a sportswriter hasn't worked in sports, he shouldn't comment on the diversity among GMs, coaches, team presidents, etc., right?

The issue here is diversity. Changing the industry doesn't change the issue.

It's either a priority or it's not. People here are stating that it should not be a priority -- in their industry. That's not a consistent viewpoint.

If it's going to be a priority in one industry -- and if the media as been at the forefront of insisting that it be a priority -- then it should be a priority in all industries, including journalism.

I agree.

 

[dooley_womack1]

I don't think anyone has said diversity shouldn't be a priority. What is being said is that it is not as important as the issue of surviving long enough to improve diversity.

 

[Simon]

I don't think anyone has said diversity shouldn't be a priority. What is being said is that it is not as important as the issue of surviving long enough to improve diversity.

What he said.

You can improve diversity at every newspaper in the country in the next year, but those newspapers still won't exist in five years.

 

[Ben_Hecht]

I don't think anyone has said diversity shouldn't be a priority. What is being said is that it is not as important as the issue of surviving long enough to improve diversity.

The relentless Poynter emphasis on diversity is 'way overdone. It's rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. The key to media is to efficiently deliver exceptional information and insights difficult to obtain elsewhere. And you'd better have the people best-qualified to deliver it, on your team -- whether they're pink, black, yellow, red or chartreuse.

 

[dooley_womack1]

But no gingers. Have to draw a line somewhere.[/hixan]

 

[Drip]

I don't think anyone has said diversity shouldn't be a priority. What is being said is that it is not as important as the issue of surviving long enough to improve diversity.

What he said.

You can improve diversity at every newspaper in the country in the next year, but those newspapers still won't exist in five years.

Simon, you are right. I am concerned with both longevity and diversity.

 

[YGBFKM]

"Head in the sand pleasantries" is the perfect way to put it. The messenger is well-meaning, but the message means nothing.

 

[jr/shotglass]

LOL. I'm sure the guys & gals at your paper who cover sports, the cops beat, City Hall, education, and business are all qualified to comment about those fields, right?

Wellll ... probably more so than some others not in the field at all.

 

[Inky_Wretch]

But dragging left-vs.-right politics into this thread is a rude, uninformed and irrelevant move.

Exactly.

 

[Johnny Dangerously]

Yep. Bull**** move.

 

[YGBFKM]

Everyone on this thread has been right to some degree.

 

[jr/shotglass]

But dragging left-vs.-right politics into this thread is a rude, uninformed and irrelevant move.

Exactly.

You know, what's always gotten me is that nobody to my knowledge has EVER apologized for dragging politics into a thread where it was not wanted. They just think we WANT to buttonhole everything into D vs. R.

 

[dooley_womack1]

I think that with the hammer coming down on political threads again, some are trying to find openings.

 

[BDC99]

Otherwise, not much to offer feedback on, since his column is the obligatory conference opener and I'd probably say the same type of thing in that situation. I hope Phil will invite our feedback when his columns become more detailed on issues.

Agreed ... but is diversity really the biggest problem we're facing today? Forgive me for speaking out of place, but, I (like a lot of others, I imagine) am in a spot where we're being asked to do more with less space and resources, management that doesn't seem to care unless it's a new app or we can put it online and/or spends money on anything but the newsroom, and it would be nice to get a wage one can live on in 2011 rather than 2008, and one of the largest bodies in our industy makes the key point of the opening address ... diversity? A good thing, but something I can't worry about unless there's a job to offer, and in case nobody's noticed, the trend seems to be the opposite.

YF, please read the above again. This is what most people here are agreeing with. The assertion that anyone on this thread is "rejecting" diversity is absurd.

 

[JimmyHoward33]

"Head in the sand pleasantries" is the perfect way to put it. The messenger is well-meaning, but the message means nothing.

Thirded.

 

[HanSenSE]

I don't think anyone has said diversity shouldn't be a priority. What is being said is that it is not as important as the issue of surviving long enough to improve diversity.

The relentless Poynter emphasis on diversity is 'way overdone. It's rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. The key to media is to efficiently deliver exceptional information and insights difficult to obtain elsewhere. And you'd better have the people best-qualified to deliver it, on your team -- whether they're pink, black, yellow, red or chartreuse.

This is exactly what I was thinking when I made my first post, it reads chapter-and-verse from, oh, every Poynter study ever done on the subject. Poynter is so predictable on diversity/coverage of women's sports/when to change lightbulbs, it raises questions about their objectivity. Yet execs ooh and ahh over everything they say because .. they're a think tank!

I don't know Phil, I'm not a member of APSE and, outside of crossing paths with them here, have no interaction with members. I really hope this was something said just to please any publishers who might be there and some of the issues raised here will be addressed as well.

 

[sportsguydave]

Otherwise, not much to offer feedback on, since his column is the obligatory conference opener and I'd probably say the same type of thing in that situation. I hope Phil will invite our feedback when his columns become more detailed on issues.

Agreed ... but is diversity really the biggest problem we're facing today? Forgive me for speaking out of place, but, I (like a lot of others, I imagine) am in a spot where we're being asked to do more with less space and resources, management that doesn't seem to care unless it's a new app or we can put it online and/or spends money on anything but the newsroom, and it would be nice to get a wage one can live on in 2011 rather than 2008, and one of the largest bodies in our industry makes the key point of the opening address ... diversity? A good thing, but something I can't worry about unless there's a job to offer, and in case nobody's noticed, the trend seems to be the opposite.

Agreed. This is head in the sand pleasantries. Diversity might have been our biggest problem a decade ago. Now it's survival. Newsrooms are shrinking, not just sports departments. More teams and schools are producing their own news on their websites, bypassing the mainstream media which no longer has the resources to cover what they did as recently as 5-6 years ago.

Diversity in hiring? How about hiring in general? Or not downsizing? Sorry, Phil just completely whiffed on that one.

Second, seconded, and seconded. On our list of problems, diversity is way down the list.

I just love how liberal, white males can preach diversity for everyone else and then reject it for their own industry because it might hurt their own employment prospects.

Typical of the "do as I say, not as I do" attitude of many liberals.

So, what industries are healthy enough for diversity to be important? Who gets to decide?

Cops and teachers have been laid off all over the country, should diversity be rejected by schools & police forces too?

If diversity is important - and I believe it is -- then its importance is not determined by the health of individual industries.

Now, there you go making assumptions again, YF. It's what you do best. You and I have never met, so you have no idea what my ethnic background is. But soldier on with your tired old left-vs.-right games that have helped get so many threads locked around here.

Others have dealt with the reasons why diversity is a bit further down the agenda for us right now. I'll just say that as a hiring editor, I've been in a position to do something about diversity on a front-line level. And I have, with my last two hires. But as an industry, we have to focus on our survival right now. If there are no jobs, then there won't be any way to work on the whole diversity thing.

But it's just like you to drag politics into a non-political discussion. Guess we can expect more of that.

Get lost.

 

[Simon]

Let's not forget about the issue of teams restricting access more every year.

 

[Traveling]

To think diversity is our industry's primary concern, or that it should even be on the radar of existing concerns, is beyond insulting.

 

[jr/shotglass]

Well, I don't disagree that we have some more pressing concerns.

But showing absolute disdain over the issue of diversity isn't the way to go about it, either. Maybe diversity isn't pressing to some of us WASPy vets. But it's plenty important in some corners of our profession.

And YF, I didn't say that because I was a) liberal; b) conservative; c) Republican or d) Democrat. It was a politics-free statement.