A few weeks ago, the big story in the NFL was how no minorities were hired as head coaches or general managers despite many vacancies in this year’s market. Multiple news outlets shined the light and questioned the league’s hiring practices.
Well, it turns out many of the folks covering that story have their own issues when it comes to diversity in the newsroom.
Richard Lapchick, head of the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida, writes that he has “discouraging” news regarding the latest study of hiring practices in sports media.
Lapchick in Street and Smith’s Sports Business Daily:
Of all the racial and gender report cards produced by The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida, the most discouraging was the first Associated Press Sports Editors report card in 2006. Unfortunately, that sentiment is still applicable today.
It is discouraging because the percentages of people of color and women in the top-level positions in sports media remain dismally low. The hiring practices of ESPN appear to be the only factor that is bringing up the percentages.
In the report that’s due to be released this week, the grade for racial hiring practices for APSE newspapers and websites last year remained a C+, the same as in 2010. The F grade issued for gender hiring practices remained constant as well. The combined grade for 2012 was a D+
The percentage of white employees as sports editors dropped 97 percent in 2010 to 90 percent in 2012. Columnists went from 86 to 84 percent in that department.
As for male employees, it fell from 94 to 90 percent for sports editors. However, it went up from 90 to 91 percent in the columnist category.
Any increase is small at best. Lapchick writes:
Some improvements are evident. Nonetheless, if you look like me, you have a great chance for upward mobility in the sports departments of newspapers and dot-coms in the United States and Canada.
Lapchick cited ESPN for helping to raise the numbers:
In each of the reports in 2006, 2008, 2010 and now, ESPN’s statistics for sports editors and columnists raised the numbers. Without their key hirings, the statistics would be even worse than they were in 2006.
In the new report card, of the 12 people of color who are sports editors at “Circulation A” media outlets (the largest newspapers and dot-coms, with a circulation of 175,000 or more), four work for ESPN, which employed two of the six African-American sports editors and two of the four Latino sports editors. If ESPN’s people of color were removed, the percentage of sports editors in the “A” organizations who are people of color would drop from 15 percent to 11 percent.
Of the 11 women who are sports editors at this circulation level, six work for ESPN. If the ESPN sports editors who are women were removed, then the percentage of female sports editors at this level would drop from 14 percent to 8 percent.
Obviously, this is an important issue that has many different and complex angles. I know that APSE is working hard to bump up the numbers, but clearly there’s a long way to go.
I’ll have more on this story soon.