Among the most sacred cows in Gannett are the various diversity-in-news-and-hiring programs that Corporate has been pushing on journalists as long as I can remember -- something I referenced in this post, now drawing lots of comments."My favorite anecdote on such matters came from a buddy who had to cover a country western festival in the 90% Caucasian upper Midwest and was ordered to mainstream his story,'' one commenter just wrote. "He spent all day looking for anyone remotely non-white and came up dry. However, he did find a white woman who was married to a Hispanic man, so her last name was Fernandez or Garcia or something along those lines. When he turned in the story, he happily noted he'd found a mainstream source . . . after all, just look at her name!"
(Clearly, I wouldn't be writing such means things if I was drinking my daily glass of Kool-Aid!)
One time, an editor in Detroit bought a colleague of mine dinner when he was able to find a Chinese guy to quote in a story about some local issue in Sterling Heights, Mich., a lily-white Detroit suburb.
ReplyDeleteI kid you not: A reporter for a Gannett daily was reduced to going through the phone book in search of people with the last name of Washington so she could cold=call them for mainstreaming purposes.
ReplyDeletePhotographers at this same paper were told to make sure to include nonwhite faces in crowd photos from one of the local Nascar races. Talk about a needle in a haystack ...
Geez, man, you're all right!
ReplyDeleteIt really SUCKS how white folks, especially men, have to work so hard to think about the rest of the population. Sorry about that! It's really unfortunate that they have that terrible inconvenience, especially when they're so busy being responsible for telling the community what it thinks.
Yes, there are going to be some horror stories whenever there are "rules," but isn't it a good thing that diversity is prioritized enough to be required?
I hate to say it, but shouldn't a true journalistic professional not even *need* a "rule" because they'd be doing it anyway, and they'd be able to think/report/source with diversity pretty naturally?
(I'll resist the temptation to get off-topic by citing examples of media companies (especially those owned by certain churches) who don't have diversity in their blood stream, except to say that if you want to see why goofy diversity-enforcing rules aren't all bad, you have to step back and look at some companies that really, really need them.)
There's something worse that a company that champions diversity and embracing people and ideas from all races, genders, ages, sexual orientations, religions, ethnicities, parties, etc.
Haters, I challenge you to respond on this one -- I'll take you on all day.
No one's complaining about diversity, or making it a priority. But when the Gannett paper in, say, Green Bay is held to the same mainstreaming standards as the Gannett paper in, say, Detroit, that's an impossible situation.
ReplyDeleteYou can't tell a photographer he has to go to a Packers game and only come back with fan photos that have minorities in them. If you're truly being objective and reporting the news, finding the two black guys in a crowd of 65,000 and emphasizing their presence is as misleading as only taking pictures of white people in Detroit.
Emphasizing diversity and OVERemphasizing diversity are two different things. And when you start tying editor bonuses to how many minorities they have in their newsrooms or how many non-white faces they have in the paper, then that plays just as much havoc with a paper's objectivity as ignoring them. You didn't solve the problem, you just shifted it to the other end of the spectrum.
I'll agree with the last comment, and also give you an example of why Gannett's diversity hiring is good for the business. Back in the mid-90s, I worked in Little Rock, at the "Democrat-Gazette". Now, the population of Little Rock was just under 40 percent black at the time. In a newsroom of 250 employees, you could count the number of black employees on one hand. And they had their token woman in management, but for the most part, it was all balding middle-aged white men. Compare that to any Gannett newsroom in towns with a much smaller minority population, and tell me again why you think Gannett's diversity program is wrong?
ReplyDeleteI'm 1/30/2008 4:59 AM and agree with TJ's comment, which is a well-said reminder of the difference between rules and guidelines. Gannett says it's all about being local, but there is a HUGE diversity in american communities as well as people -- so i wonder if sometimes guidelines make more sense than rules.
ReplyDeletecome to think of it Gannett people always have a reputation for being so competitive -- so I wonder how much of the overemphasis is caused by editors being overzealous in competing with one another to satisfy corporate goals, instead of thinking exclusively about local readers/users? just a thought/question.
anyway, tj, you got it right and you made me realize the issue is more complex, so i'm all calmed down now
thanks
Gannett's diversity program is not wrong. The manner in which it is executed (and enforced) is the underlying issue. Especially since it's not practiced at Corporate. Just how much diversity do you see on the Gannett Management committee?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.gannett.com/about/management/gmc.htm
I didn't say it was wrong. I said it was handled wrong. I'm all for mainstreaming newsrooms. But when you start forcing people's hands - as opposed to encouraging them - you turn people off.
ReplyDeleteDemanding people mainstream their stories when common sense tells you that doing so will be intensely difficult, not to mention a perversion of the news process, is not a good thing. To go back to my friend's story, do you think he turned in the best story he possibly could have, having spent literally hours combing a country music festival for a minority source when he could have been interviewing dozens of other people, etc.? And in order to appease the editor, he essentially had to lie to avoid being castigated for not finding that minority source.
Is THAT a good development for newsrooms?
Diversity isn't wrong, and I agree it's important, it's just very poorly implemented by Gannett corporate. Diversity should grow organically in the newsroom but under News2000 Gannett was trying to grow with harsh chemical fertilizers and genetic manipulation.
ReplyDeleteAt the Gannett site I worked at in the 90's photo selection was based on the number of people of color in the photo. Journalistic content or aesthetic quality were not a factor. The photo editor had to write weekly reports detailing how many minorities had been photographed that week. Sports and restaurant reviews didn't count.
I've talked to other Gannett photographers who had similar (if not quite as draconian) mandates to meet.
In our "lilly-white" town the reporters go to the same two African-American residents and one Asian resident for comment on just about every story. It's simply absurd. What's even worse is that the editors joke about it -- "Fire in a business of Elm Street, better call Mr. Lee for comment."
ReplyDeleteSorry folks, that's not mainstreaming - that's stupidity.
I can top your stories. When I worked at my first Gannett paper, we were required to turn in our mainstreaming reports monthly detailing how many African-Americans, women, Asians, Hispanics, etc., we had talked to that month. If your numbers were too low, watch out ...
ReplyDelete