News-Record.com

When you say minority, do you just mean black? Or does the paper actively recruit other races/ages/handicaps as well?

Dear Editor,

Nice post. Just a note from the ghost of copy desk's past. You wrote above in your editor's blog:

"The jury is out on whether we have improved our coverage of the community. Of the two African American hired, one isn't here yet. Of the three who are here, they are all good. We are interviewing for other positions so we can continue to make progress."

From the blogster's copy desk, I say: Please make that term African American into African Americans (plural) since you are talking about plural people. As a longtime Webster of the Webster clan, I know you know, and that is was nothing but a typo, an atomic typo at that, and as soon as you correct it in the blog proper, please delete my note to you here.

I make typos all the time. It is the nature of work of these *!@##$ keyboards!

Yours Forever,

Daniel Webster (yes, that one!)

Thanks, Daniel, for the copy editing. All writers need a good editor.

Rusty, we're recruiting all races, ages and handicaps. (Some readers have enjoyed commenting on my handicaps.) We're focusing on racial diversity right now.

The sky hasn't fallen. Great.

Thanks for cheapening the concern of those of us who think this just isn't quite fair.

Did anyone say the sky would fall? Did we say it would be the end of civilization?

No, we pointed out that it just didn't seem fair -- and that the N&R's experience in promoting "diversity" in the past had yielded some very, very questionable hires (at the expense of obviously good hires.)

Will the "sky fall" from all of this? Not likely. But, then again, did the sky fall six months after Jayson Blair was hired? No.

Even after the Jayson Blair debacle did the sky fall? Some folks would say no.

I think at some point you are going to hire a minority candidate who is less qualified than a non-minority. My guess is that the sky will fall for the person who was passed over. When will that happen? Who knows...

Thanks again for using a condescending tone -- "sky falling" -- to describe the concern that some of us have.

It really shows us how seriously you take any of the comments on this ridiculous "blog" thing anyway. Just as I suspected.

I took them seriously, Jim. That's why I updated the initiative.

For the record, I think that a business should be able to hire whomever it wants. Still, there's some irony, I think, in John Robinson's claim:

"The fact is, the world is different for white people and for people of color. A diverse staff provides an authenticity and robustness that can't be duplicated. And if readers don't see their worlds and voices in the newspaper, they won't see the newspaper as credible."

Leaving aside the epistemological determinism of skin color here--i.e. the insistence that "black people" see the world differently because they're black, which leads inevitably to a notion of a "black perspective" to which not all blacks subscribe--cannot this same logic apply to conservatives and liberals? _Does_ it not, and in a less troublesome way, since we are talking now of explicit ideological affiliations? If a multiperspectival robustness is what the N&R is after, then why not institute affirmative action for conservatives? Don't you want to "connect" with conservative readers in ways that liberal journalists (i.e., most of them) cannot? Don't liberal journalists bring to bear a perspective on their reporting (as Bernard Goldberg suggests in what I regard as obvious point)? If John is suggesting that tacit norms are inevitably reproduced in journalism, then aren't liberals going to do this just as "whites" and "blacks" do? Or are they able, somehow, to check their liberal norms at the journalistic door, but not their racial ones?

I'm reminded here of Charles Krauthammer's clever remark (he may have been reporting it from another source) that Murdoch and Fox News brilliantly identified a niche market: half of America. Fox News is a conservative news outlet, to be sure, but it's no farther to the right than NPR or CNN are to the left.

John writes, "And if readers don't see their worlds and voices in the newspaper, they won't see the newspaper as credible." Don't you care about us poor marginalized conservatives, John? Don't you care about your credibility with us?

Two additional points: in my opinion, the N&R, in both its reporting and editorializing, isn't an egregiously liberal paper. It's solidly center-left, with relatively few violations at the level of straight reporting. The national editorials are boringly predictable as regurgitated center-left talking points (as opposed to say, the Washington Post, which is a thoughtful and provocative center-left editorial page), plus a few equally predictably equivocations and concessions. At the local level, however, it's quite excellent.

Point 2: This paper is saturated with "the African-American perspective," but notably silent insofar as "the Latino perspective" is concerned. If you're going to do racial quotas, hire a Latino!

John,

Thanks for saying that you do take our viewpoints seriously. But, likening us to Chicken Little (a la the sky is falling) does not exactly make us believe that you take our concerns seriously.

Still, thanks for going out of your way to say that you do take these concerns seriously. Maybe you do despite your poor choice of analogy.

I say any effort to widen the applicant pool to make sure it includes people of all colors, creeds etc. is admirable. I am conflicted, however, about Affirmative Action measures because I think they cause some people to be disgruntled as they feel that those folks who are hired are not "good enough" or "as good as" and it's a stigma that can make it hard to fit in to a new work environment. Yet, before there were Affirmative Action measures, few people in power were rushing to hire people of color or even believed people of color could perform as well as or even better than white people in similar circumstances...

I still long for the day when I am judged by my character and not the color of my skin.

Jim, that's the second time you have referred to questionable hires. Can you e-mail me off-line to elaborate? I tried to e-mail you directly but the missive was returned as undeliverable.

Having seen how blindingly white most American newsrooms are I have no problem with an initiative to get a little color into the mix.

I do have to wonder why everyone seems so convinced that everyone who works at the N&R is liberal, though - or that that's in some way going to taint their ability to do a job that is, largely, non-political. I hate to burst the bubble of those who are convinced that print media is a festering pit of political intrigue and that only by including more left or right elements can we possibly balance it all out ...but most newspaper work is just not that exciting or ethically dangerous. Those who are doing it professionally at the daily level do have some small degree of training and experience (to say nothing of a professional integrity) and aren't operating at the high-school paper level.

And for those whose newspaper work does come dangerously close to politics the News and Record also has a code of ethics whose section on political involvement is complete and above board to the point of being severe.

I can understand the criticism of John Robinson's "the sky hasn't fallen" comment.

I can also understand why the comment was probably made in the first place.

Through the News & Record Blogs, the topics of affirmative action/ quotas/ hiring policies have received some attention and provoked some criticism.

The issue of fairness is a legitimate one.

But arguments about fairness would be easier to swallow if there was some acknowledgement that we may not yet have advanced far enough to be able to trust people simply to take into account merit.

(We can jump up and down all day long insisting that racism is only alive because of policies like affirmative action and people who keep bringing it up, but such insistence can at best be characterized as naive, if not worse.)

I do not often get a copy of the High Point version of the News & Record, but I remember some time in the not too distant past seeing an "ad" that pictured News & Record employees who worked for or covered the High Point area.

My vague memory is that the ad may have had 30-40 people in the picture, all lined up in a long row, and it seems like each person's name was included and maybe their job title and/or area of responsibility.

All of the faces were white faces; if there was any visible racial or ethnic diversity, one or two may have been Asian, but I'm not sure of this. There were definitely not any African-Americans pictured unless they were so light-skinned as to be able to "pass" as white.

(You see a lot of similar ads for real estate companies and sometimes for car dealerships; occasionally, there may be one or two African-Americans pictured; sometimes not.)

OK.

Big deal.

Who cares?

It shouldn't matter.

It doesn't matter.

What does race have anything to do with anything?

And I'm guessing there are a lot of readers shaking their heads up and down excitedly with the last several statements, thinking, "Yes, yes, he gets it! He knows exactly what he's talking about! That's exactly what I mean! That's exactly what I'm thinking and talking about!"

But if such responses don't seem a little simplistic, I'm not sure if you're thinking as deeply about the topic as maybe you ought to try.

It's easy from a white perspective on this issue.

It's easy because you rarely if ever are placed in a position of having to ponder what it might possibly be like to be non-white under such circumstances.

We never have to consider what it would be like if all of the mainstream media in our community had few if any individuals who look like us nor share similiar cultural experiences and perspectives.

(I know we all share a common American perspective and that we should not focus on the cultural identities we receive from our racial and ethnic backgrounds, but if that's what we really want, then let's start with Southerners, letting "them" know that they need to abandon regionalism in the name of the much more important nationalism. Then, with that good faith step, we can start working on other subcultures that supposedly break down the fabric of our national character.--(Just in case it's not clear, I don't actually think a Southern cultural identity harms our nation any more than an African-American cultural identity. But some people will criticize one without acknowledging the at least equal presence of the other as a means of allegedly dividing us.))

We can say, "Oh, as long as the people are the best hires, it doesn't matter if they are all black."

But that's a little too convenient because that's something we will rarely if ever actually face.

(Leonard Pitts Jr. wrote an interesting column that appeared in the News & Record this past Saturday, I believe. In it, he pointed out a case in which a black man assumed a position of power, fired about 40 whites, and hired blacks as all of their replacements. Pitts acknowledged completely how horrible an action this was, but he had points that went well beyond this one incident, points that would be well-worth seeking out and considering.)

I have read very provocative comments about this topic through the News & Record's Blogs. I believe John Robinson and Allen Johnson have addressed some points very well. Other points have either been ignored or have not been addressed as thoroughly. Legitimate points and questions have been made or asked, and the News & Record's policy will stand on stronger and stronger ground the more its representatives consider and respond to these suggestions and complaints.

The same is true in reverse, however. Critics of the News & Record's policy have not adequately addressed some of the points that have been thrown back at them. Criticism is shakier without acknowledgement of the complexity of the overall issue. If there were more acknowledgement that this is not simply a black and white matter (in more ways than one), then it might be easier to avoid the temptation of a "the sky hasn't fallen" comment.

The News & Record does not seem to be taking the approach of that black man (in a newly gained position of power) whom Leonard Pits Jr. cited in his column.

Unless it just hasn't been reported yet, News & Record employees are not being forced out to make way for new hires.

A friend of mine who works at the News & Record pointed out how long many employees stay. In certain positions, that probably means that there is not a lot of room for new people to come in, and advancement opportunities are probably limited as well. When new people come in, it may be frustrating because of the lack of seniority they have. My guess would also be that there is a decent amount of competition for newly available higher positions within the company. In other words, a lot of factors are at work.

John mentioned five new hires within five months. Does that just include the news department or the entire newspaper? Five seems like a relatively small number. Of those, I'm inferring that three of the five are white. I feel even safer inferring that three of the five are male. This sounds like a long-term initiative rather than an attempt to change things overnight. That's probably a better way to approach things even though that will probably seem too slow an approach for some. (And obviously way too fast an approach for others!)

As for the point about "bad" minority hires, yes, they probably stand out more, but that doesn't mean that there are more of them. There are probably a lot of "bad" white hires out there whom we simply don't notice as much because they blend in with all the other whites who surround them. A "bad" minority hire within a predominantly white work environment is probably going to stand out more, and it might also be more tempting to blame affirmative action or quotas or some other force.

But what do you blame for all those "bad" white hires out there who keep their jobs til they die, keeping qualified candidates of any race from being able to replace them until after they've been forced out by natural death?

I've noticed the ads for the 25th annual Journalism Workshop for Minorities at the News & Record. (I've butchered the official title of the workshop, I think, but I don't have a copy of the newspaper with me right now.) A former Southwest Guilford Middle School student, Chris Lea is featured in the ads. I did not teach Chris myself, but I had the good fortune of getting to know this young man through a relationship between his mother and mine. (Our mothers both used to work at North Carolina A & T State University's Bluford Library.) As the ad mentions, Chris is currently working in the sports department. For many reasons, I'm glad that Chris has had the opportunity to explore journalism through the News & Record. When I ran into him recently, he was also working with a local radio station, so it seems like he is exploring many options. My guess is that Chris's participation in the summer program opened a door for him. At the same time, I'm guessing that had he not performed well, he would not have been given the current opportunity he's taking advantage of. (Some people have posted comments suggesting that lesser qualified individuals have been selected instead of more qualified individuals. The people posting those comments also indicated that the situations were corrected--the "bad" hires were either fired or left their positions, and those positions were filled with individuals who ended up working out better. That makes it sound like the system works overall. Yes, it might have been better if the second-round hires had been hired initially, but life, for multiple reasons, doesn't always work out that way. In the long run, though, it sounded like things worked out for the best in those situations, as they were described. (Probably some of the worst, most consistently bad "hires" are made by politicians who appoint their friends and supporters to various positions.)

I can go further back to when I was in high school and recall having a counselor check out the News & Record's program for minority high school students as a possible option for me.

I am a white male, so that might seem a little odd.

But I was a student at Dudley High School and very much a member of a racial minority during my four years of school there.

It turned out that I did not qualify, so I never applied or participated. (The program was seeking minorities within our society, not within a specific school.)

I believe I heard about similar programs that were open to anyone, but I never pursued those. I ended up following a path that led me to become a teacher instead of a journalist. And I definitely don't have any gripes or complaints. I understand why the program was created, and I understand why it still exists. And in the grand scheme of things, I doubt that white students are ultimately hurt in the process. (At the very least, at least much less so than some would argue.)

I do know that our student newspaper at Dudley was inconsistent while I was there--it seems like I remember it being strong my freshman year, but I don't believe it existed during at least some of the other three years that I was at Dudley. (My memory is hazy already about the years between 1986-1990, so don't hold me to this.) I do remember taking a class at Page High School and being exposed to its student newspaper, which was remarkable for its high quality. (During my senior year, there was even a racial controversy about a comic that was printed in the Page newspaper. My memory is that the comic was probably too deep and mature for a lot of high school students; it succeeded at being highly provocative, but unfortunately, maybe too much so.)

Beyond special programs that the News & Record might offer for particular students, some students are going to be at an automatic advantage or disadvantage simply because of the particular schools they attend--based on what those schools offer or don't offer, and based on discrepencies in the quality of what they offer.

There is no way to equalize everything, and there are arguments about why trying to equalize things might not be the best approach.

But we need to return back to that main point about how complex and complicated things are because when we try to oversimplify things, we tend to lose some of our persuasive power.

Finally, it might also be worth noting that through its minority initiative, the News & Record might purposely or inadvertently address the complaint that others have raised: that there are not enough conservative voices among the News & Record's employees.

Among African-Americans, there is a deep association with the Democratic party, but when you actually know and have significant relationships with many African-Americans, you will realize that there is much more diversity of thought than voting patterns would have you believe.

Some African-Americans can make whites who seem like hard-core conservatives actually seem like they are bleeding heart liberals. And I'm not talking about "token" black columnists or pundits--I'm talking about so-called "everyday people."

(In his Sunday column, Allen Johnson alluded to such diversity of thought within the African-American community when he highlighted differences between how he regarded the issue of renovating Dudley and how his sister and her husband regarded that same issue.)

Conservatives may want to remain at least temporarily open-minded about this hiring policy.

It certainly remains unclear where it will ultimately lead!

(Allen Johnson has not yet indicated if he plans to hire his sister in the name of being "fair and balanced." We will have to wait for that scoop!)

All true, Joe. Thanks.

SHF, thanks for visiting again. Thoughtful and provocative, as always. I think you're mistaken about that High Point ad. I know the one you're talking about and it has at least one Asian American and at least one and, I think, two African Americans because they work in the news department there.

Also, the five hires refers only to the news department. The target I wrote about only applies to news, not the entire paper. This is a long-term commitment. No one is being forced out, but we know we are in this for the long haul to get where we want to be.

The business about the lesser qualified people being hired over better applicants has been thrown out, but not documented. I don't know where it came from.

As for the liberal tilt people say the News & Record has, well, that's another topic. So much of what the staff writes is apolitical. Heck, go to Marcus Kindley's blog -- he's the county Republican chairman -- and you'll find that the last two mentions he's made of our coverage of issues has been complimentary!

I hear a lot of right wing chatter about the N&R being scadalously liberal.

Ask most young liberals on my campus and they'll tell you the N&R is far too conservative.

Tells me they're doing it right.

Wow! Mr. Floyd, you have really given this some thought. I was a minority reporter at the N&R some years ago and I was in the High Point bureau for a bit and there was at least one other person of color there when I was there (mind you, this was a 4- or 5-person operation then), so the N&R, in my mind, has done a better job than some media organizations (where I work now I am the only person of color in editorial--and have been for the past 5 years). I think you do what you can. The print journalism business, as a whole, is not teeming with minorities and those who stay in the business (I know five black reporters, all with a minimum of 8 years experience who have left the business in the past 3 years) tend to find their way to the newspapers in the bigger, more urban cities because frankly, the pay is better, the chance of finding diversity of culture and community is better and there is more cache associated with writing for a Washington Post, NY Times, Wall Street Journal, Cleveland Plain Dealer, St. Pete Times, Miami Herald etc. Not that I'm knocking G'boro or the N&R.

And yes, Jayson Blair didn't work out, but neither did Stephen Glass (Google him for more information). For every ying there's a yang.

How many hispanic-americans does the N&R employ?

percentage-wise, that is. And how does it compare to the percentage of blacks employed?

I can't speak for the number employed by the entire paper. For the news department, we have 124 full-time employees, three are Hispanic and eight are African American.

Thanks, Mr. Robinson.

Isn't the percentage of blacks and hispanics roughly the same in NC (I want to say it's somewhere around 18% for each)? Is there a plan at the N&R to even out that gap a little, so there's more like 6 and 5 instead of 8 and 3?

How about, old, crusty, opinionated, ex military ,conservative, disabled, white men? Haven't seen that one questioned yet?

JR: As for the liberal tilt people say the News & Record has, well, that's another topic. So much of what the staff writes is apolitical. Heck, go to Marcus Kindley's blog -- he's the county Republican chairman -- and you'll find that the last two mentions he's made of our coverage of issues has been complimentary!

ME: It's another topic that bears intimately on this topic. John's logic for the racial quota system is as follows: Our reporters are disproportionately white, and hence unable to access and reproduce the black perspective (since "the world is different for whites and people of color"). The remedy is therefore to hire black reporters who can provide this perspective.

In this argument lies the assumption that the N&R has historically failed to represent adequately the perspective of colored persons. (Else why institute the practice?) There is no mention here of any professionalism that would innoculate the paper from its inescapably white perspective.

On the matter of political ideology, however, the situation is said to be entirely different. The liberal bias of the paper is apparently a fantasy concocted by conservatives with a predilection for believing that the sky is falling. (That comment, incidentally, is paradigmatic of what we do all time--bring our own biases to bear on how we use language. John believes criticism of the hiring practice to be wrongheaded, and so uses language that trivializes it--even though he's a journalist!! I do the same thing. So do you.) Where ideology is concerned, professionalism and the "largely apolitical" nature of "much" reporting are said to prevent a liberal perspective from informing and shaping the way news is reported.

But the "largely apolitical" nature of "much" reporting does not argue for a _race_-neutral hiring practice, only a _politically_ neutral one. No one is asked to prove that paper has skewed "white" (only asked to prove that it has skewed "liberal"). The racial bias is assumed (John is eager to assume it); the political bias must be demonstrated (John is eager to deny it). What accounts for this difference? If I found a black leader complimentary of the paper's coverage of the African American community, would that negate the logic of hiring persons of color?

Here's the double bind I see: either (a) professionalism represses the perspective reporters bring to their reporting, or (b)perspectives inevitably shape the worlds we live in (and report on). If the former, then perspective need not be part of hiring practices; if the latter, then it can legitimately be a part. What I find conceptually flawed is liberal journalists who will swear that their political objectivity is as pure as the driven snow, and yet their snow-white skin precludes the possibility of objectivity on matters having to do with race, since, apparently, "it's a black thing I wouldn't understand."

As to the question of whether reporters are liberal, they are--in about the same numbers as college professors. Numerous studies (one was released last week) show this, and no one who spends any time in a newsroom would deny the basically liberal culture prominent there. That left wing students view the paper as too conservative means nothing except that its politics are to the right of their politics; doubtlessly there are many right wingers who view Fox News as too liberal; doubtlessly there were Soviet apparatchiks who viewed Pravda as not communist enough.

Again, my point is not to berate the N&R for liberal newswriting (which I detect, but in a minimal form), but to identify a double standard.

Rusty, our commitment is to mirror more closely the percentages in Guilford County, not all of North Carolina. And in Guilford County, the percentage of African Americans is about 30; the percentage of Latinos is in single digits.

Gotcha. Thanks.

"Please make that term African American into African Americans (plural) since you are talking about plural people."

African-American is hyphenated.

"Plural people" is redundant.

Are there any real editors here?

As far as the whole newsroom goes (a previous post said just the news department), what are the demographics? How many hispanics and other minorities are represented?