14 ms·

Tech Journalism Is Less Diverse Than Tech

167 points by fossuser 6y ago

surajs 6y ago
interesting, one assumed that journalism per se is diverse than other fields.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  Journalism is one of the fields where it's mandatory to speak, act, and even think according to specific cultural practices, which is always going to lead to diversity problems.
  - brodo 6y ago
    Reminds me of the latest ‘You are not so smart’ episode: https://overcast.fm/+Cuhug5Y3E https://overcast.fm/+Cuhug5Y3E It makes complete sense for journalists to write things which are widely agreed upon in their group. The audience for journalists is always first and foremost their colleagues.
    - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
      I do worry about overstating the degree of orthodoxy, though. Journalists regularly write things which aren't widely agreed on or report the news in unconventional ways; they may be reclassified as "writer" or "blogger" or "political commentator", but in most cases they won't get shunned or anything.
- tdeck 6y ago
  One reason could be that journalism typically requires a college education and then doesn't pay that well. Many media internships are also unpaid. That means you need some source of "runway" in the form of previous savings or family wealth to get started and build your career.
  - flak48 6y ago
    On the other hand tech is one of those industries where someone from say even a journalism degree can get a job after a short bootcamp (and there are many free ones if you are a woman or minority)
0xy 6y ago
I'm hardly surprised they don't practice what they preach. The majority of journalistic outlets have rapidly descended into yellow journalism, lies, doxxing and slanderous allegations. Journalism is a race to the bottom in quality, and journalists absolutely don't put the effort in anymore. Hitting the streets and risking their lives to get that one big story just isn't a thing anymore, now they get all their information from Twitter and engage in some pretty egregious conduct against ideological opponents. ABC News covered up allegations against Epstein. NPR falsely accused innocent assault victims of being "right-wing extremists", then refused to retract it. New York Times thinks doxxing controversial people is okay. All of them vehemently support censorship, and some even call for the prosecution of their own sources. These institutions don't need to be saved or reformed, they need to be burnt to the ground.
- goatinaboat 6y ago
  ABC News covered up allegations against Epstein And NBC covered for Weinstein, see Ronan Farrow' book.
est31 6y ago
Note that linked study [0] uses too high white percentages for Facebook. > As of 2020, the percentage of white employees at Facebook is 63.2%. It links to this [1] document where if you click on "whites" in the "US ethnicity" section, there is indeed a 63.2% percentage. But that number corresponds to the green curve which concerns people in leadership roles. The number for all facebook employees (including the technical engineers, etc) is the blue one, which only has 41%. In the image, facebook would thus be closer to the other tech companies and further away from the journalists. It's also interesting to note that the percentage of nonhispanic whites in the US population is 60.1% [2], so they are actually underrepresented in big tech companies (and overrepresented in tech journalism). Didn't know that! [0]: https://tech-journalism-diversity-report.github.io/code/ https://tech-journalism-diversity-report.github.io/code/ [1]: https://diversity.fb.com/read-report/ https://diversity.fb.com/read-report/ [2]: https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045219 https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045219
- himinlomax 6y ago
  To add to that, that's counting Jews as white. When you don't, two very unfortunate things happen: first non Jewish whites are now the most underrepresented category, and two you end up sounding like Charlie Chaplin with a mustache.
  - AmericanChopper 6y ago
    I find in particularly hilarious that white men are most definitely bad, but Jews are definitely not bad and definitely not white. However Jews and Arabs can be interchangeably considered white, Arab or Jewish, or Asian depending on what story you’re trying to tell. An Indian can be counted as just generically brown or “of color” if they’re participating in the correct political narratives, but most certainly become Asian the moment they start to consider getting in on some of that affirmative action. Isn’t it wonderful that ethnicity has once again become such a terribly important factor when it comes to passing judgements about people...
    - zozbot234 6y ago
one2know 6y ago
Tech human resources, legal, and recruiting are overwhelmingly white women, to wit no one cares. Truck drivers are 94% men, no one complains about that. The business and political community is hyperfocused on software engineering jobs for two reasons. Corporations want political support for H1-B. And, in some cases, STEM workers have high importance in influencing the political world as we saw with Facebook in the 2016 elections. Therefore, the political world is hyper-focused on those specific jobs to hire people that they think are sympathetic to their political parties, usually along race and gender lines.
- darawk 6y ago
  Completely agree, though i'll also add that journalists want a cudgel to beat tech with for a variety of reasons, and diversity is the favored cudgel du jour to beat everyone with.
- hankchinaski 6y ago
  nurses, teachers, HR and many more professions are overwhelmingly female dominated, yet nobody is complaining about that, is it? why does gender and race matter when what it takes is skills, competence, intelligence? why is it so hard to understand that univariate analysis is nonsense?
  - DanBC 6y ago
    > nurses, teachers, HR and many more professions are overwhelmingly female dominated, yet nobody is complaining about that, is it? When is the last time you read a nursing magazine, or did a web search for information about increasing the numbers of male nurses? People do complain about these things.
    - acituan 6y ago
      The difference is for some sectors this topic appears frequently on the mainstream media while what you suggest requires checking dedicated specialists publications or active intention of search. That is precisely the problem, what determines the difference in which sectors’ diversity problems deserve most public attention and why.
hankchinaski 6y ago
we should be promoting equality of opportunity not equality of outcome - i dont understand how this chart with %of white people makes any sense at all - did you do multivariate analysis to see what factors are a concause for someone to be hired?
- darawk 6y ago
  I think he is promoting that. This article is written in response to the steady drumbeat of "diversity in tech" hit pieces in the tech media over the last few years. Its just pointing out the hypocrisy of the tech media on this issue.
- swyx 6y ago
  the problem with this framing of equality is that you forget some outcomes ARE opportunities. opportunities compound, throughout lifetimes. affirmative action hiring is "two wrongs make a right" type thinking. it's not ideal. doesn't mean its better than the alternative, which is "oh let's just fix every injustice in society". won't see that in our lifetime, won't see that in 100 lifetimes. what if equality of opportunity STARTS with mildly rebalancing equality of outcome?
  - luckylion 6y ago
    > what if equality of opportunity STARTS with mildly rebalancing equality of outcome? What if it doesn't? Then you're sowing aninmosity by unjustly favoring some people over others, spend billions of dollars, throw back humanity's progress by not chosing the best person for the job etc, all for nothing. Before you start, you better be damn sure that you're 100% right. The recent examples with the gender pay gap all but vanishing when you calculate it scientifically do not bode well for these kinds of ideologies even getting the fundamental data right - hard to believe they'll get the therapy right if they fail on that stage already.
    - 6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
      The pay gap might largely vanish when you control for different factors, but that doesn't mean there's no gap or no issue. That just means it's driven by gaps in those other factors. If you pressure different people to make different career choices, for example, you can't just then control for those choices and say it's all good and everything's fair.
altaria 6y ago
If it's ok to criticize the percentage of whites, is it ok to criticize the percentage of Ashkenazi Jewish people? If you think it's to criticize the number of Jewish people but not non Jewish white people, why is that not bigotry?
at_a_remove 6y ago
I remember a photo of a Gamergate group as compared to all of the HuffPo journalists together. The latter was nothing but white women, as compared to the actually varied racial and gender composition of the former. Physician, heal thyself, I guess.
- Causality1 6y ago
  Modern journalism is about using outrage to drive revenue. GamerGate faced (on a smaller scale) the same situation BLM faces today. If the audience is more outraged/enthused at a group being moral crusaders then they'll push that angle. If casting them as dangerous criminals stands to generate more ad money and user engagement they'll do that instead.
  - pjc50 6y ago
    Gamergate was an astroturf harassment operation. It was a prototype for so much of the politics we see today. Mentioning it as if BLM were in any way comparable is a dire insult to BLM.
    - iagovar 6y ago
      Yeah, everything is a conspiracy.
    - rndgermandude 6y ago
      Who was astroturfing for what purpose?
    - Causality1 6y ago
      Discussions about the relative morality of informal self-associating groups quickly becomes a No True Scotsman contest. "The real Gamergaters only cared about TFYC and the GameJournoPros cabal and the ones who harassed women were just opportunistic sexists" and "Only peaceful protesters count as BLM supporters and the ones looting small businesses are opportunistic criminals." Granted it's reasonably obvious a greater percentage of BLM supporters have pure intentions compared to the percentage of Gamergate supporters who did, but it's my position that an overall value judgment on informal groups is not useful. The bad actors don't affect the validity of the message. When someone argues that the riots are a good reason to dismiss the calls to end systemic police racism it's just an ad hominem fallacy writ large.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
hardwaregeek 6y ago
This is important information and an interesting point, but I'm not surprised that it's less highlighted. Tech companies are some of the most powerful entities in the world. They pay their employees extremely high salaries, make billions of dollars and control how basically everybody goes about their life, from using the internet to interacting socially. Tech journalism...is none of those things. Oh sure they have power in that they can critique the companies and expose their issues. But their influence is not on the same level as tech companies' influence. Their journalists are not getting paid high salaries. They're not controlling our daily lives. Journalism as a whole? Diversity is definitely a hot topic there. Tech journalism? Ehh. Of course we should care about diversity throughout society. But that's not how it works. We care about diversity when there is power, either an intense amount of it or an intense lack of it. We care about the diversity of Ivy League schools and the diversity of prisons. We don't care about the diversity of baristas. Therefore we don't care about it in tech journalism.
- thinkingemote 6y ago
  The point is that we care about stuff that journalism says we should care about.
hsson 6y ago
Sorry but "18% other" just doesn't seem fair to write. Come on, an article about diversity that just groups ~1/5 into "other"...
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
jayd16 6y ago
I think the article is right to raise the point about diversity in tech media. However, posting it here and some of the comments just feels like whataboutism.
Yetanfou 6y ago
May I suggest a follow-up article with the title 'Journalism is politically less diverse than its audience' in which a rallying cry is heard to shake up the market? To do anything else would be rather hypocritical given the great drive for diversity in everything and anything.
kepler1 6y ago
Maybe I'm getting more conservative and irritable in my old age, but I've really gotten saturated and tired of diversity, diversity, diversity -- "we should reflect who our customers are", etc. As if that's the durable standard and goal of our society. I just don't buy it. Here's what I'm for. I'm for removing barriers to anyone being able to be interested, educated, and encouraged to do the things they want to do. And we should work to make it easier for people to be identified as having skills and talent in whatever field they choose. Then let the chips fall where they may. This push for equality of outcome + diversity is political bullshit of the moment. Every field and industry and job will reflect the demographics of who is interested in doing that job, the pipeline of people who seek to become educated and qualified for it, and the proportions of who succeeds at showing their skills. You will not escape that truth -- and trying to do so will cause more frustration and political backlash than working within that truth. Fashionable as it may be to latch on to a message right now, I don't think the majority of people buy the idea that diversity in itself means that any selective field ought to equal the proportions of the groups you choose to divide general society into. People can simply see that it's not true as an outcome. And that movement will lose.
- zozbot234 6y ago
  To many people who are deeply committed to this divisive "pro-diversity" movement, comments like yours are "hate on women and minorities; racism, sexism" etc. This is exactly the kind of comment they'll screenshot and say "Orange site bad!" on Twitter. It's quite sad.
- grx 6y ago
  Hot topic, but your comment has some good points I'll try to add my experience to. > I'm for removing barriers to anyone being able to be interested, educated, and encouraged to do the things they want to do. And we should work to make it easier for people to be identified as having skills and talent in whatever field they choose. From my POV, as a white male, this relates to a misconception of what many "diversity" programs actually aim for: pushing underprivileged and disadvantaged people into positions from where they have better chances to even come in contact with their true interests and talents. The same goes for role modelling, which is not to be underestimated in the context of "do the things they want to do". If you are black or female, but 90% of an "industry" (whatever that is, just take a group of people representing the part of society which does $thing) is white and male, could you see yourself in this industry? I know this is an extremely controversial question, especially in discussions between white males. But from what I learned from underrepresented people during the years is that role models and identification plays a HUGE part in "making a free choice". > Every field and industry and job will reflect the demographics of who is interested in doing that job, the pipeline of people who seek to become educated and qualified for it, and the proportions of who succeeds at showing their skills. I would not follow this as straight as you have. The demographics in tech (and other fields, of course) could also show that once a majority is settled (here: white male), they tend to attract and recruit people who are like-minded and similar to themselves. Example US: "Among chief executives of S.&P. 1500 firms, for each woman, there are four men named John, Robert, William or James", https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/03/upshot/fewer-women-run-big-companies-than-men-named-john.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/03/upshot/fewer-women-run-bi... Example DE: "The surnames Thomas and Andreas make up a share of 7%, more than the total shares of women", https://www.manager-magazin.de/politik/artikel/weniger-frauen-in-mdax-vorstaenden-als-maenner-namens-thomas-a-1022017.html https://www.manager-magazin.de/politik/artikel/weniger-fraue... ---- I know what you mean, and for a long time I was in the same boat, looking for barriers like money and availability of time that might block minorities from entering higher education and the higher workforce. But the problems are of structural nature and they can only be solved by acknowledging that the main barriers are not forms, interest and intelligence, but identification, perspective and connections.
jariel 6y ago
In this particular case, it's not about white people's representation, it's Asian. Asian people are highly represented in tech, and they are not in journalism. That's the qualifying issue. So understanding why that disparity exists is the key, it has little to do with 'diversity policies' or anything like that.
chasely 6y ago
Having had a significant other that worked in journalism, this makes sense to me. Journalism has become a profession which is much easier to follow if you have an "elite" background. It can be a prestigious job, but with a low salary for decades. To break into it you often have to earn your stripes and work your way up. In "elite" journalism--major newspapers and outlets--this often includes very low paying or non-paying internships in some of the most expensive cities in the country. It's a lot easier to do this if you have parents that can pay your rent or max out their non-taxable gifts to you each year. To even get these internships it helps to go to one of the top 5 J-school graduate programs, which are expensive ($30k+ tuition/year) and in high cost of living cities (except Mizzou). Due to the racial wealth gap in the US--which was caused by systemic racism--this means that upper-class White people are going to be the ones that can best outlast this system and end up making it as a journalist.
- jseliger 6y ago
  There's also an extreme supply-demand mismatch in journalism (as there is in acting, music, and similar fields), meaning that many persons in the field take a lot of their "income" from the profession via non-monetary sources: https://jakeseliger.com/2019/11/19/have-journalists-and-academics-become-modern-day-clerics https://jakeseliger.com/2019/11/19/have-journalists-and-acad...
- tuesdayrain 6y ago
  >Due to the racial wealth gap in the US--which was caused by systemic racism I did some searching and couldn't find any articles about racial wealth gaps in other countries. Is there any evidence to suggest that the racial wealth gap is uniquely an American problem?
- corndogs 6y ago
  >this means that upper-class White people are going to be the ones that can best outlast this system and end up making it as a journalist. This is not true. There is certainly an over representation of a group within journalism / media, but it is most certainly not people of a "waspy" disposition who are the ones vastly over represented to an absurd degree.

167 points by fossuser 6y ago

surajs 6y ago

interesting, one assumed that journalism per se is diverse than other fields.

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
Journalism is one of the fields where it's mandatory to speak, act, and even think according to specific cultural practices, which is always going to lead to diversity problems.
- brodo 6y ago
  Reminds me of the latest ‘You are not so smart’ episode: https://overcast.fm/+Cuhug5Y3E https://overcast.fm/+Cuhug5Y3E It makes complete sense for journalists to write things which are widely agreed upon in their group. The audience for journalists is always first and foremost their colleagues.
  - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
    I do worry about overstating the degree of orthodoxy, though. Journalists regularly write things which aren't widely agreed on or report the news in unconventional ways; they may be reclassified as "writer" or "blogger" or "political commentator", but in most cases they won't get shunned or anything.
tdeck 6y ago
One reason could be that journalism typically requires a college education and then doesn't pay that well. Many media internships are also unpaid. That means you need some source of "runway" in the form of previous savings or family wealth to get started and build your career.
- flak48 6y ago
  On the other hand tech is one of those industries where someone from say even a journalism degree can get a job after a short bootcamp (and there are many free ones if you are a woman or minority)

0xy 6y ago

I'm hardly surprised they don't practice what they preach. The majority of journalistic outlets have rapidly descended into yellow journalism, lies, doxxing and slanderous allegations. Journalism is a race to the bottom in quality, and journalists absolutely don't put the effort in anymore. Hitting the streets and risking their lives to get that one big story just isn't a thing anymore, now they get all their information from Twitter and engage in some pretty egregious conduct against ideological opponents. ABC News covered up allegations against Epstein. NPR falsely accused innocent assault victims of being "right-wing extremists", then refused to retract it. New York Times thinks doxxing controversial people is okay. All of them vehemently support censorship, and some even call for the prosecution of their own sources. These institutions don't need to be saved or reformed, they need to be burnt to the ground.

goatinaboat 6y ago
ABC News covered up allegations against Epstein And NBC covered for Weinstein, see Ronan Farrow' book.

est31 6y ago

Note that linked study [0] uses too high white percentages for Facebook. > As of 2020, the percentage of white employees at Facebook is 63.2%. It links to this [1] document where if you click on "whites" in the "US ethnicity" section, there is indeed a 63.2% percentage. But that number corresponds to the green curve which concerns people in leadership roles. The number for all facebook employees (including the technical engineers, etc) is the blue one, which only has 41%. In the image, facebook would thus be closer to the other tech companies and further away from the journalists. It's also interesting to note that the percentage of nonhispanic whites in the US population is 60.1% [2], so they are actually underrepresented in big tech companies (and overrepresented in tech journalism). Didn't know that! [0]: https://tech-journalism-diversity-report.github.io/code/ https://tech-journalism-diversity-report.github.io/code/ [1]: https://diversity.fb.com/read-report/ https://diversity.fb.com/read-report/ [2]: https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045219 https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045219

himinlomax 6y ago
To add to that, that's counting Jews as white. When you don't, two very unfortunate things happen: first non Jewish whites are now the most underrepresented category, and two you end up sounding like Charlie Chaplin with a mustache.
- AmericanChopper 6y ago
  I find in particularly hilarious that white men are most definitely bad, but Jews are definitely not bad and definitely not white. However Jews and Arabs can be interchangeably considered white, Arab or Jewish, or Asian depending on what story you’re trying to tell. An Indian can be counted as just generically brown or “of color” if they’re participating in the correct political narratives, but most certainly become Asian the moment they start to consider getting in on some of that affirmative action. Isn’t it wonderful that ethnicity has once again become such a terribly important factor when it comes to passing judgements about people...
  - zozbot234 6y ago

one2know 6y ago

Tech human resources, legal, and recruiting are overwhelmingly white women, to wit no one cares. Truck drivers are 94% men, no one complains about that. The business and political community is hyperfocused on software engineering jobs for two reasons. Corporations want political support for H1-B. And, in some cases, STEM workers have high importance in influencing the political world as we saw with Facebook in the 2016 elections. Therefore, the political world is hyper-focused on those specific jobs to hire people that they think are sympathetic to their political parties, usually along race and gender lines.

darawk 6y ago
Completely agree, though i'll also add that journalists want a cudgel to beat tech with for a variety of reasons, and diversity is the favored cudgel du jour to beat everyone with.
hankchinaski 6y ago
nurses, teachers, HR and many more professions are overwhelmingly female dominated, yet nobody is complaining about that, is it? why does gender and race matter when what it takes is skills, competence, intelligence? why is it so hard to understand that univariate analysis is nonsense?
- DanBC 6y ago
  > nurses, teachers, HR and many more professions are overwhelmingly female dominated, yet nobody is complaining about that, is it? When is the last time you read a nursing magazine, or did a web search for information about increasing the numbers of male nurses? People do complain about these things.
  - acituan 6y ago
    The difference is for some sectors this topic appears frequently on the mainstream media while what you suggest requires checking dedicated specialists publications or active intention of search. That is precisely the problem, what determines the difference in which sectors’ diversity problems deserve most public attention and why.

hankchinaski 6y ago

we should be promoting equality of opportunity not equality of outcome - i dont understand how this chart with %of white people makes any sense at all - did you do multivariate analysis to see what factors are a concause for someone to be hired?

darawk 6y ago
I think he is promoting that. This article is written in response to the steady drumbeat of "diversity in tech" hit pieces in the tech media over the last few years. Its just pointing out the hypocrisy of the tech media on this issue.
swyx 6y ago
the problem with this framing of equality is that you forget some outcomes ARE opportunities. opportunities compound, throughout lifetimes. affirmative action hiring is "two wrongs make a right" type thinking. it's not ideal. doesn't mean its better than the alternative, which is "oh let's just fix every injustice in society". won't see that in our lifetime, won't see that in 100 lifetimes. what if equality of opportunity STARTS with mildly rebalancing equality of outcome?
- luckylion 6y ago
  > what if equality of opportunity STARTS with mildly rebalancing equality of outcome? What if it doesn't? Then you're sowing aninmosity by unjustly favoring some people over others, spend billions of dollars, throw back humanity's progress by not chosing the best person for the job etc, all for nothing. Before you start, you better be damn sure that you're 100% right. The recent examples with the gender pay gap all but vanishing when you calculate it scientifically do not bode well for these kinds of ideologies even getting the fundamental data right - hard to believe they'll get the therapy right if they fail on that stage already.
  - 6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
    The pay gap might largely vanish when you control for different factors, but that doesn't mean there's no gap or no issue. That just means it's driven by gaps in those other factors. If you pressure different people to make different career choices, for example, you can't just then control for those choices and say it's all good and everything's fair.

altaria 6y ago

If it's ok to criticize the percentage of whites, is it ok to criticize the percentage of Ashkenazi Jewish people? If you think it's to criticize the number of Jewish people but not non Jewish white people, why is that not bigotry?

at_a_remove 6y ago

I remember a photo of a Gamergate group as compared to all of the HuffPo journalists together. The latter was nothing but white women, as compared to the actually varied racial and gender composition of the former. Physician, heal thyself, I guess.

Causality1 6y ago
Modern journalism is about using outrage to drive revenue. GamerGate faced (on a smaller scale) the same situation BLM faces today. If the audience is more outraged/enthused at a group being moral crusaders then they'll push that angle. If casting them as dangerous criminals stands to generate more ad money and user engagement they'll do that instead.
- pjc50 6y ago
  Gamergate was an astroturf harassment operation. It was a prototype for so much of the politics we see today. Mentioning it as if BLM were in any way comparable is a dire insult to BLM.
  - iagovar 6y ago
    Yeah, everything is a conspiracy.
  - rndgermandude 6y ago
    Who was astroturfing for what purpose?
  - Causality1 6y ago
    Discussions about the relative morality of informal self-associating groups quickly becomes a No True Scotsman contest. "The real Gamergaters only cared about TFYC and the GameJournoPros cabal and the ones who harassed women were just opportunistic sexists" and "Only peaceful protesters count as BLM supporters and the ones looting small businesses are opportunistic criminals." Granted it's reasonably obvious a greater percentage of BLM supporters have pure intentions compared to the percentage of Gamergate supporters who did, but it's my position that an overall value judgment on informal groups is not useful. The bad actors don't affect the validity of the message. When someone argues that the riots are a good reason to dismiss the calls to end systemic police racism it's just an ad hominem fallacy writ large.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

hardwaregeek 6y ago

This is important information and an interesting point, but I'm not surprised that it's less highlighted. Tech companies are some of the most powerful entities in the world. They pay their employees extremely high salaries, make billions of dollars and control how basically everybody goes about their life, from using the internet to interacting socially. Tech journalism...is none of those things. Oh sure they have power in that they can critique the companies and expose their issues. But their influence is not on the same level as tech companies' influence. Their journalists are not getting paid high salaries. They're not controlling our daily lives. Journalism as a whole? Diversity is definitely a hot topic there. Tech journalism? Ehh. Of course we should care about diversity throughout society. But that's not how it works. We care about diversity when there is power, either an intense amount of it or an intense lack of it. We care about the diversity of Ivy League schools and the diversity of prisons. We don't care about the diversity of baristas. Therefore we don't care about it in tech journalism.

thinkingemote 6y ago
The point is that we care about stuff that journalism says we should care about.

hsson 6y ago

Sorry but "18% other" just doesn't seem fair to write. Come on, an article about diversity that just groups ~1/5 into "other"...

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

jayd16 6y ago

I think the article is right to raise the point about diversity in tech media. However, posting it here and some of the comments just feels like whataboutism.

Yetanfou 6y ago

May I suggest a follow-up article with the title 'Journalism is politically less diverse than its audience' in which a rallying cry is heard to shake up the market? To do anything else would be rather hypocritical given the great drive for diversity in everything and anything.

kepler1 6y ago

Maybe I'm getting more conservative and irritable in my old age, but I've really gotten saturated and tired of diversity, diversity, diversity -- "we should reflect who our customers are", etc. As if that's the durable standard and goal of our society. I just don't buy it. Here's what I'm for. I'm for removing barriers to anyone being able to be interested, educated, and encouraged to do the things they want to do. And we should work to make it easier for people to be identified as having skills and talent in whatever field they choose. Then let the chips fall where they may. This push for equality of outcome + diversity is political bullshit of the moment. Every field and industry and job will reflect the demographics of who is interested in doing that job, the pipeline of people who seek to become educated and qualified for it, and the proportions of who succeeds at showing their skills. You will not escape that truth -- and trying to do so will cause more frustration and political backlash than working within that truth. Fashionable as it may be to latch on to a message right now, I don't think the majority of people buy the idea that diversity in itself means that any selective field ought to equal the proportions of the groups you choose to divide general society into. People can simply see that it's not true as an outcome. And that movement will lose.

zozbot234 6y ago
To many people who are deeply committed to this divisive "pro-diversity" movement, comments like yours are "hate on women and minorities; racism, sexism" etc. This is exactly the kind of comment they'll screenshot and say "Orange site bad!" on Twitter. It's quite sad.
grx 6y ago
Hot topic, but your comment has some good points I'll try to add my experience to. > I'm for removing barriers to anyone being able to be interested, educated, and encouraged to do the things they want to do. And we should work to make it easier for people to be identified as having skills and talent in whatever field they choose. From my POV, as a white male, this relates to a misconception of what many "diversity" programs actually aim for: pushing underprivileged and disadvantaged people into positions from where they have better chances to even come in contact with their true interests and talents. The same goes for role modelling, which is not to be underestimated in the context of "do the things they want to do". If you are black or female, but 90% of an "industry" (whatever that is, just take a group of people representing the part of society which does $thing) is white and male, could you see yourself in this industry? I know this is an extremely controversial question, especially in discussions between white males. But from what I learned from underrepresented people during the years is that role models and identification plays a HUGE part in "making a free choice". > Every field and industry and job will reflect the demographics of who is interested in doing that job, the pipeline of people who seek to become educated and qualified for it, and the proportions of who succeeds at showing their skills. I would not follow this as straight as you have. The demographics in tech (and other fields, of course) could also show that once a majority is settled (here: white male), they tend to attract and recruit people who are like-minded and similar to themselves. Example US: "Among chief executives of S.&P. 1500 firms, for each woman, there are four men named John, Robert, William or James", https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/03/upshot/fewer-women-run-big-companies-than-men-named-john.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/03/upshot/fewer-women-run-bi... Example DE: "The surnames Thomas and Andreas make up a share of 7%, more than the total shares of women", https://www.manager-magazin.de/politik/artikel/weniger-frauen-in-mdax-vorstaenden-als-maenner-namens-thomas-a-1022017.html https://www.manager-magazin.de/politik/artikel/weniger-fraue... ---- I know what you mean, and for a long time I was in the same boat, looking for barriers like money and availability of time that might block minorities from entering higher education and the higher workforce. But the problems are of structural nature and they can only be solved by acknowledging that the main barriers are not forms, interest and intelligence, but identification, perspective and connections.

jariel 6y ago

In this particular case, it's not about white people's representation, it's Asian. Asian people are highly represented in tech, and they are not in journalism. That's the qualifying issue. So understanding why that disparity exists is the key, it has little to do with 'diversity policies' or anything like that.

chasely 6y ago

Having had a significant other that worked in journalism, this makes sense to me. Journalism has become a profession which is much easier to follow if you have an "elite" background. It can be a prestigious job, but with a low salary for decades. To break into it you often have to earn your stripes and work your way up. In "elite" journalism--major newspapers and outlets--this often includes very low paying or non-paying internships in some of the most expensive cities in the country. It's a lot easier to do this if you have parents that can pay your rent or max out their non-taxable gifts to you each year. To even get these internships it helps to go to one of the top 5 J-school graduate programs, which are expensive ($30k+ tuition/year) and in high cost of living cities (except Mizzou). Due to the racial wealth gap in the US--which was caused by systemic racism--this means that upper-class White people are going to be the ones that can best outlast this system and end up making it as a journalist.

jseliger 6y ago
There's also an extreme supply-demand mismatch in journalism (as there is in acting, music, and similar fields), meaning that many persons in the field take a lot of their "income" from the profession via non-monetary sources: https://jakeseliger.com/2019/11/19/have-journalists-and-academics-become-modern-day-clerics https://jakeseliger.com/2019/11/19/have-journalists-and-acad...
tuesdayrain 6y ago
>Due to the racial wealth gap in the US--which was caused by systemic racism I did some searching and couldn't find any articles about racial wealth gaps in other countries. Is there any evidence to suggest that the racial wealth gap is uniquely an American problem?
corndogs 6y ago
>this means that upper-class White people are going to be the ones that can best outlast this system and end up making it as a journalist. This is not true. There is certainly an over representation of a group within journalism / media, but it is most certainly not people of a "waspy" disposition who are the ones vastly over represented to an absurd degree.