Newspapers faulted for sports hirings

[MTM]

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- U.S. newspapers got a failing grade for gender diversity in their sports departments and a C for racial diversity, according to a study released Thursday.
Seventy-eight percent of the staffs at Associated Press Sports Editors newspapers and Web sites are white men, the study found. Just 5 percent of sports staffs are black men and just under 3 percent are Latino men. Only 11.5 percent are women.
The report was done by Richard Lapchick, director of the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida.
Among sports editors, 88 percent are white men, with just under 2 percent black men, slightly more than 2 percent Latino men and nearly 6 percent white women. There was just one black female sports editor among the 341 newspapers surveyed.

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These stories annoy me because there is never a context of how deep, or shallow, the pool of candidates is.
I would love to have had a more diverse staff when I was hiring, but if every applicant you get is a white male, you don't have much choice than to hire a white male.
Perhaps, like in MLB, the goal should be to develop a bigger pool of sports journalists who are not white men.

 

[Armchair_QB]

I'm going to get flamed for this but I'll ask anyway.

What's an acceptable percentage of minority staff members?

 

[Big Chee]

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- U.S. newspapers got a failing grade for gender diversity in their sports departments and a C for racial diversity, according to a study released Thursday.
Seventy-eight percent of the staffs at Associated Press Sports Editors newspapers and Web sites are white men, the study found. Just 5 percent of sports staffs are black men and just under 3 percent are Latino men. Only 11.5 percent are women.
The report was done by Richard Lapchick, director of the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida.
Among sports editors, 88 percent are white men, with just under 2 percent black men, slightly more than 2 percent Latino men and nearly 6 percent white women. There was just one black female sports editor among the 341 newspapers surveyed.

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These stories annoy me because there is never a context of how deep, or shallow, the pool of candidates is.
I would love to have had a more diverse staff when I was hiring, but if every applicant you get is a white male, you don't have much choice than to hire a white male.
Perhaps, like in MLB, the goal should be to develop a bigger pool of sports journalists who are not white men.

I have to agree with you. There's a huge gray area those numbers aren't touching. It's not as if theres a huge pool of minority and female sports writers out there being turned away at the door. Maybe the industry needs to do a better job of cultivating possible talent from the ground up rather than being blamed for the lack of diversity in the industry.

Lord knows we need to have alternative POV in the industry.

 

[BYH]

I'm going to get flamed for this but I'll ask anyway.

What's an acceptable percentage of minority staff members?

New definition of minority staff members: Those who are still employed.

 

[Mizzougrad96]

A few years back when a similar study came out we looked up what percentage of journalism students were minorities. The number was about 15 percent.

It doesn't seem so far off now.

 

[Mizzougrad96]

Who is the only black, female SE?

Did Garry Howard have a sex change?

 

[bigpern23]

In my six years at my current shop, I have gone through the process of hiring someone four times.

I have never received a resume from a female. I believe I have received only one resume from a minority (I say, "I believe," because only one has made it clear in their resume what their ethnic background was and I never asked anyone).

As someone else noted, the only way to increase diversity in the newsroom (particularly the sports dept.) is to encourage females and minorities to enter the field when they are still in high school, or even earlier.

Of course, at this point, it might be doing a disservice to females and minorities to point them in our direction. :-\

 

[DanOregon]

You never read these types of studies of feature and lifestyle departments. It's always the sports department that gets the gas.

 

[Ace]

You never read these types of studies of feature and lifestyle departments. It's always the sports department that gets the gas.

Perhaps it may be because they have more women and minorities?

 

[MileHigh]

Who is the only black, female SE?

Patricia Mays, Riverside Press-Enterprise.

 

[Big Chee]

It's funny how the birth of intergration spelled the death of the black sportswriter and newspapers in general.

 

[Big Chee]

And given that a lower percentage of minorities go to college, it's no surprise that those who do choose majors and professions that pay more.

There were fewer minorities in college back 40 years ago yet many more minority sportswriters than there are now.

So I don't see how your point applies here.

 

[Armchair_QB]

And given that a lower percentage of minorities go to college, it's no surprise that those who do choose majors and professions that pay more.

There were fewer minorities in college back 40 years ago yet many more minority sportswriters than there are now.

So I don't see how your point applies here.

They recognized a failing profession faster than whitey maybe?

 

[DanOregon]

I'm not saying its okay for sports departments to discriminate or that diversity is a bad thing, what I am saying is that sports is typically a night gig and once women have families, sports offers a less preferable schedule to other newspaper jobs.

How many people, white, male or other, would put up with the schedule or pay, if they didn't love sports and had other options?

 

[Big Chee]

And given that a lower percentage of minorities go to college, it's no surprise that those who do choose majors and professions that pay more.

There were fewer minorities in college back 40 years ago yet many more minority sportswriters than there are now.

So I don't see how your point applies here.

They recognized a failing profession faster than whitey maybe?

why the use of that language?

I think the death of the black newspaper industry in the name of intergration had more to do with it than blaming anyone in particular.

 

[SigR]

I don't mind that the ivory-tower types fill their days gathering marginally useful statistics to publish marginally useless reports, but give me a break with the F and C grades on gender and race diversity.

The country has 12% black population. Given that black individuals as a demographic choose to pursue higher education far less frequently than whites, I'd say 5% black men in the industry isn't too far off target to what would be expected in a color-blind study. This isn't to say that there aren't a number of closet racists in high places, but it isn't the bleak, attention-grabbing sentiment from the article either.

Maybe the study goes into details of what percentage of women aspire to be sports-writers compared with men. And like Armchair said, and what always runs through my mind when i see statistics posted like these: what is an acceptable number?

Barring few exceptions, I believe we've come far enough in this country that if you are talented, work hard, and can do the job, you will rise to the top no matter what you look like. (See Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton) Bull**** "grades" on studies like these only elicit guilt, outrage and, given the leaning of most university-types, tenure.

 

[Big Chee]

Percentagewise fewer minorities go to college than whites, since most professions have minority recruitment programs these days (but probably not 40 years ago), it's no surprise that not many minorities chose journalism as a profession.

Or do I need to break it down further so you can understand.

Uh....I think your point about fewer minorities going to college than whites has ALWAYS been the case, YET there were more black sportswriters in the industry 40 years ago than there are now as minorities attending and completing college is at an all time high.

It has little to do with minority recruitment programs since most college educated blacks who are employed did NOT, I'll repeat, did NOT need a recruitment program to gain their employment.

It's obvious that there are other factors which play a bigger role.

 

[dixiehack]

Percentagewise fewer minorities go to college than whites, since most professions have minority recruitment programs these days (but probably not 40 years ago), it's no surprise that not many minorities chose journalism as a profession.

Or do I need to break it down further so you can understand.

Uh....I think your point about fewer minorities going to college than whites has ALWAYS been the case, YET there weresmore black sportswriters in the industry 40 years ago than there are now.

It has little to do with minority recruitment programs since most college educated blacks who are employed did NOT, I'll repeat, did NOT need a recruitment program to gain their employment.

It's obvious that there are other factors which play a bigger role.

40 years ago, journalism was far more of a craft than a profession, and writers of both tints had a good shot at getting hired even without a college education.

And I would go back at least a decade farther than you have to trace the free-fall of the black newspaper.

 

[crimsonace]

The Lapchick Foundation is the sports world's ambulance chasers.

They create controversy with regards to diversity where there is none. They consistently put out these platitudes about "racism" in hiring, but never look at the underlying reasons ... most of which have been covered here.

Could the fact that only 11% of sportswriters are women come down to the fact that not as many women are interested in sports as men (in addition to the nighttime hours of the job). That could also explain why men's participation numbers are higher at the high school level than women's, but the Lapchick Foundation will still run around claiming discrimination.

 

[Jesus_Muscatel]

Given the current state of journalism today, I'm gonna say it.

Yo, Lapchick, shut the **** up.