By Caitlin Swieca
Even though Scott Brooks is a sociologist by trade, his research and views on race, gender and sports were extremely relevant to what we’re doing this week at SJI.
Brooks is a Missouri professor and the author of “Black Men Can’t Shoot,” a book about the myth of the natural black athlete and how that is manifested in a summer basketball league in Philadelphia.
Although he has never worked as a reporter, Brooks had great insights on how race is portrayed in the media. He encouraged us to not only steer clear of, but also question, the archetypal portrayals of athletes of color and their stories.
One of my articles for the SJI Bulletin was about the APSE diversity report card that was released earlier in the year. The report shows dismal progress and very low percentages of women and minorities in positions of power in sports departments.
For my story, I started talking to some prominent minority sports editors in the country, including Jorge Rojas of the Miami Herald, the current APSE Diversity chair; Michael Anastasi, founder of the APSE Diversity Program; and Kathy Kudravi, chair of the board for the Association for Women in Sports Media.
Although it’s easy to look at the report and say that newspapers aren’t doing enough to diversify, the people I spoke to seemed optimistic. They pointed out how difficult it is to bring women and minorities up through the system – while programs like SJI help start journalists in the industry, they can’t make them managers right away.
Brooks spoke about the importance of taking statistics like those in the Lapchick report and putting stories behind them. We need to address the struggle and come up with meaningful ways to change things. There are no easy solutions, but it’s an important discussion for us, as an industry, to have.
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