Tech journalism is less diverse than tech (2020) • Hacker News Board

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

#111

Post by dogleash » Fri, Nov 19, 2021, 6:07 PM UTC

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…

>I have never received a satisfactory answer for why a lot of people from these fields are all about "Everyone should learn to code" initiatives, but not, say "Everyone should learn to be a citizen journalist"

A few years ago when some journos got laid off, people on twitter meme-ed that they should learn to code. Not only did the journos make it extremely apparent just how far beneath them they think software development is, they also went out of their way to attack the people ribbing them. (With their standard tools: guilt by association to 4chan who got in on the ribbing, and getting twitter to categorize criticism in the wrong direction as abuse.) https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/learn-to-code

It's not the reason, but analyzing this sort of thing is a start.

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

#112

Post by rajin444 » Fri, Nov 19, 2021, 6:08 PM UTC

whimsicalism wrote: post #39

kleene_op wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What’s the correct wealth for white and black families?

If you say “I don’t know, but it needs to be closer” that’s just in group preference - which is fine, but don’t present that statistic as evidence of anything but a disparity. You need to prove (while accounting for all confounds) that this gap is a result of x.

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

#113

Post by thenanyu » Fri, Nov 19, 2021, 6:08 PM UTC

whimsicalism wrote: post #97

thenanyu wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are better signals you could get of job success but they require a greater up front investment; I’ve had a good track record with a slightly lower bar on the technical screen and a 30 day probationary period. Some friends of mine user a 2 week work trial for all candidates.

I can't imagine a high-quality candidate agreeing to either of those things in the current market. I certainly wouldn't. But software engineering is very bimodal, so I'm sure it works.

The conditions certainly have to be right but it works for high quality candidates if your reputation is good and you engender enough trust.

High quality candidates are generally confident in their abilities and thankful that they can take 2 weeks to show you their skills instead of doing it in a high pressure setting in a couple of hours.

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

#114

Post by TheOtherHobbes » Fri, Nov 19, 2021, 6:11 PM UTC

dahfizz wrote: post #65

whimsicalism wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The cause is pretty obvious: journalists and other humanities do not pay well. People are not willing to pay for the garbage modern journalists put out, so there is not much money in the field. The only people going into the field, therefore, are those who are independently rich (rich parents) and ideologically motivated (which further reduces the quality of modern journalism).

Journalism and the humanities can pay extremely well for insiders.

The humanities - especially law and some corners of academia - also have far more direct political leverage than tech does.

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

#115

Post by cameldrv » Fri, Nov 19, 2021, 6:14 PM UTC

quantumwannabe wrote: post #105

angelzen wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not surprisingly, the population of STEM graduate programs is vastly dominated by foreign students. "81 percent of full-time graduate students in electrical and petroleum engineering programs at U.S. universities are international students, and 79 percent in computer science are." https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2017/10/11/foreign...

That is more because a grad degree is a unnecessary expense for an American who wants an industry job, so the only Americans who go for grad degrees are people who want to be in academia. A masters contains a lot of repeated information from a bachelors, and many masters programs from "reputable" schools are now diploma mills that prey on international students willingness to pay large amounts of money an American de…

Advanced degrees also make getting certain visas easier. The relative value for spending money and two years on a Masters or six years of your life on a PhD is much higher if it carries with it a ticket to stay in the U.S.

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

#116

Post by flyingchipmann » Fri, Nov 19, 2021, 6:16 PM UTC

thenanyu wrote: post #113

whimsicalism wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't imagine a high-quality candidate agreeing to either of those things in the current market. I certainly wouldn't. But software engineering is very bimodal, so I'm sure it works.

The conditions certainly have to be right but it works for high quality candidates if your reputation is good and you engender enough trust. High quality candidates are generally confident in their abilities and thankful that they can take 2 weeks to show you their skills instead of doing it in a high pressure setting in a couple of hours.

There are other factors other than time though. In current market it's important to get at least 2 or more offers for negotiation power. Otherwise you might(or will) get the minimum offer of the band, i.e getting lowballed. Therefore going through a few of interviews in the same time frame is very beneficial to the applicants.

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

#117

Post by not2b » Fri, Nov 19, 2021, 6:18 PM UTC

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…

Also, for many of the prestigious publications, the way into the door is often via unpaid internships, and interns who do really well eventually get paying jobs. Only those whose families can support them well into their 20s can afford to do that.

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

#118

Post by adwn » Fri, Nov 19, 2021, 6:20 PM UTC

beaconstudios wrote: post #58

adwn wrote: post #13

Where's my PC Bullshit Bingo (TM) card? I need to cross off a couple of fields: 1) reducing "diversity" to "different skin colors" 2) fixating on the Third-Reich-esque concept of "human race" 3) insisting that skin colors can be neatly sorted into 4-5 discrete categories 4) lamenting the ratio between these categories, without stating what the correct ratio should be, and why

> fixating on the Third-Reich-esque concept of "human race" what does this mean? I'm no historian, but I'm pretty sure the Third Reich was focused on the "German race", to the exclusion of all others. As for ratios, the ratio indicates an uneven pipeline. If idk, programmers were all white and highly rewarded, you might ask why that is. The reason can be one of two things: white people are culturally/systemically adv…

[flagged]

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

#119

Post by ghaff » Fri, Nov 19, 2021, 6:22 PM UTC

throwaway192874 wrote: post #62

Traster wrote: post #24

Some of this looks quite.... questionable, and ironically for people that spend so much of their time attacking "the media", this authors would do well to learn something about journalism, and some of it seems downright disingenous. For example, the author talks about representation and talks about that in terms of percentage of white people hired in big tech, but if you dig in to those numbers you find out that basi…

> Why have we chosen these 13 random publications? I'm assuming that the NYT is included literally just because the people who did this study don't like the NYT? These are some of the biggest media publications that write about tech issues, these aren't just "random" choices. This author seems to focus on "big tech media" as is mentioned in the article multiple times, these are big tech media, independent journalists…

I've heard of them. GigaOm is more on analyst firm in its current incarnation but overall it seems a reasonable list of media companies.

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

#120

Post by ASinclair » Fri, Nov 19, 2021, 6:23 PM UTC

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…

> I have never received a satisfactory answer for why a lot of people from these fields are all about "Everyone should learn to code" initiatives, but not, say "Everyone should learn to be a citizen journalist", or "Everyone should learn to be a copy editor".

Software pays significantly more. Why push people into lower paying jobs?