ORLANDO, Fla. — Some 320 websites and newspapers that belong to Associated Press Sports Editors slightly improved their racial hiring practices last year, according to a study released Wednesday, though they failed again to make any strides in gender hiring for key newsroom positions.
The report, released every two years by the University of Central Florida's Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports, gave those outlets a C plus, up from a C in 2008, for racial hires and an F for gender hires in jobs including sports editor, columnist, reporter and copy editor.
This is the third report that's been done for APSE since 2006.
Overall, it said, sports departments were still being led mostly by white men.
"When survival is at stake, like it is for so many places, I think the danger is that things that will be of long-term importance are less of a priority than say, keeping the economy of a newspaper going," said the study's primary author, Richard Lapchick. "I think it happens in all kinds of businesses … The old saying of last hired, first fired is still too much at play."
Lapchick said perhaps the worst news from the study was that the percentage of sports editors who were women or people of color fell 2.3 percentage points from 11.7 percent in 2008 to 9.42 percent in 2010. White males increased by 3 percentage points for sports editors.
The report showed that 97 percent of the sports editors at APSE newspapers and websites in 2010 were white, and 94 percent of sports editors overall were men. Just 5.5 percent of sports staffs are black men and 3 percent Latino men. Only 11.4 percent are women.
Latino and Asian men increased by an average .54 percent in all categories covered, except sports editors. Latino men's biggest gain was in assistant sports editors (1.03 percent) and Asian men saw the largest gain in columnists (.66 percent).
For the complete story, go to: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_APSE_DIVERSITY_REPORT?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-04-27-20-05-43
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