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Tech journalism is less diverse than tech (2020)

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Re: Tech journalism is less diverse than tech (2020)

#31

Post by emsy »

whimsicalism wrote: post #23
secondaryacct wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah in France where I was born, which is no perfect by any means of course, we tend to call the american obsession with racial segmentation "racialism" and consider it just as bad as racism. Like racism is to grade races when racialism is to accept humanity can be segmented is such races, which we strongly deny as a nation, or so I was raised to believe (but again no lessons to give, we have issues in France)

[flagged]

I‘m from Germany, so I’m close to France but still have an outside perspective and your comment is ridiculous.

Re: Tech journalism is less diverse than tech (2020)

#32

Post by whimsicalism »

quadrifoliate wrote: post #10

Compared to programming and tech, success in a lot of fields in the humanities, including journalism is far more connected to who you know, what family you were born into, what college you went to, and your overall personal network. In such an environment, it is unsurprising that there is a severe lack of diversity. I have never received a satisfactory answer for why a lot of people from these fields are all about "E…

This hits the nail on the head. All of my friends who are in the process of becoming journalists have to spend tons of time working unpaid shitty internships just to get a low paying bottom rung job.

The only people I know who are even able to get jobs like this either have parents in the industry or have rich parents, often both.

This is also true for the humanities in academia writ large - most of the people I know getting a PhD in the humanities have rich parents.

Re: Tech journalism is less diverse than tech (2020)

#33

Post by whimsicalism »

awillen wrote: post #22
brabel wrote: post #7

Currently, the USA population is 60.4% white [1]. So, whites are under-represented in big tech (50.1% white according to this post) while over-represented significantly in tech journalism (80% white). That's difficult to understand: why is there such a bias in favour of white people in tech jornalism, but not in tech in general?? [1] https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/united-states-po...

Much, much smaller population. From OP: " So here is a more comprehensive data bank of 982 individuals across 14 publications." It's that, vs. the millions of employees in big tech. So first you're dealing with the fact that smaller samples are going to have higher variance. Beyond that, though, since diversity has become important to businesses, tech employment has grown much faster than tech journalism. If you're a…

I think it is more that industries that rely heavily on actual productivity/measurable competency are going to lean more heavily on the immigrant population because domestic STEM education largely seems to suck.

It's been my experience in every high-stakes knowledge work job (not journalism) that many of the people I work with are immigrants from the continents of Asia, Europe, and Africa.

Re: Tech journalism is less diverse than tech (2020)

#34

Post by whimsicalism »

grenoire wrote: post #3

Isn't it a luxury to be able to put down money for a journalism degree tuition in the US? I think this may already be explained quite well for the US higher education system, how do these ratios compare to journalism degrees'?

The luxury is more in the post-college pipeline.

Re: Tech journalism is less diverse than tech (2020)

#35

Post by xondono »

whimsicalism wrote: post #26
mactavish88 wrote: post #9

Focusing on such statistics usually encourages equality of outcome as opposed to equality of opportunity. A far more helpful metric would probably be to know how many people want to be in tech (or tech journalism in this case) but can’t, along with the various factors that are preventing them from getting into their desired profession. If you do then break down the numbers by ethnicity, gender, etc., you may be able…

Can you explain more? It seems like it would only encourage equality of outcome if you took the assumption that black people are innately less interested in tech as true.

> if you took the assumption that black people are innately less interested in tech as true.

Or maybe more interested but much more discriminated. The point is that you can’t see equality of opportunity by looking at the output.

Re: Tech journalism is less diverse than tech (2020)

#36

Post by whimsicalism »

emsy wrote: post #31
whimsicalism wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I‘m from Germany, so I’m close to France but still have an outside perspective and your comment is ridiculous.

Based on? Nobody with as close of ties to white supremacy has ever gotten as near to the presidency in the US as Marine Lepen.

US nightclubs do not routinely filter based on race, unlike a sizeable percentage of Paris nightclubs from past investigative reporting.

Is it possible that maybe you just don't notice the brunt of it because there are fewer people of African descent in both of these countries?

Re: Tech journalism is less diverse than tech (2020)

#37

Post by whimsicalism »

xondono wrote: post #35
whimsicalism wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain more? It seems like it would only encourage equality of outcome if you took the assumption that black people are innately less interested in tech as true.

> if you took the assumption that black people are innately less interested in tech as true. Or maybe more interested but much more discriminated. The point is that you can’t see equality of opportunity by looking at the output.

I think a good baseline is similar levels of innate interest. The fact that the output is so skewed seems to logically suggest some issue with equality of opportunity?

Re: Tech journalism is less diverse than tech (2020)

#38

Post by xondono »

Fordec wrote: post #14

I would contend that, while a subset, GAMMA companies != all tech companies as the headline implies

Off topic, but I feel obligated to comment each time I see the “GAMMA” acronym.

We either change according to parent company, and then we need to take the G and put an A. Or we don’t and leave the F.

GAMMA makes no sense.

Re: Tech journalism is less diverse than tech (2020)

#39

Post by whimsicalism »

kleene_op wrote: post #30
orangepurple wrote: post #4

"Anti" racists are professional victims. Don't engage with them. They will always find a way to twist a disagreement going against their favor into an oppression narrative.

Yes. I'm convinced the most racist people are those who can't stop talking about race, and that would include a fair amount of self-proclaimed and vocal "anti-racists".

This seems extremely premature given the massive disparities that still exist today racially.

The average wealth of a black family in Boston is $8 whereas the average wealth of a white family is about $200,000. How do we talk about these disparities if we throw away the language to talk about race?

Or is your argument that these disparities are innate? Or that they are not at all due to the legacy of explicitly race based discrimination in the US (the last school desegregated due to Brown v. Board was in 1998)?

If you're not making either of those arguments, it seems kinda obvious why discussing race is still necessary today to me, not sure what you are missing.

Re: Tech journalism is less diverse than tech (2020)

#40

Post by spamizbad »

I know two Black technical journalists; they are both blocked by various industry people. Their articles are sourced almost exclusively from investigative reporting/leaks from lower-level employees. Meanwhile super antagonistic while journos will weirdly be omitted from block lists.
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