Aaron Foley, a 29-year-old automotive writer by day and blogger by whenever, conducts a Detroit columnist census.
"Let's Talk About Detroit's Columnist Demographics, Shall We?" says his Jalopnik Detroit headline. Here's some of what he finds that's worth talking about:
- "Out of Detroit's 25 major print columnists, 16 are white guys."
- "The next major demographic is white women — and sure, there are only four to speak of."
- "Even if you were to add in columnists from other departments — let's say, Marney Rich Keenan at the News or Sylvia Rector at the Freep — you'd still be looking at a very white demographic."
- "If you remove sports, there are only two columnists of color speaking on metropolitan and general-interest issues" -- Rochelle Riley and Stephen Henderson of the Free Press.
"None of the papers surveyed here can claim a Latino or Arab-American metro columnist," writes Aaron Foley. (Facebook photo)
Foley's exercise is prompted by a Tuesday post at Gawker, headlined "What's Wrong with America's Newspaper Opinion Columnists in One Chart." (Short answer: 105 men, 38 women; median age, 60.)
"On a local scale, Detroit's no different," Foley concludes. He focuses on general interest, metro, business, auto and sports columnists at the Freep, News, Crain's and a suburban group (Oakland Press, Macomb Daily, News-Herald).
Even though seven Free Press opinion writers "fit snugly in the white guy-columnist demographic," Foley finds a "healthy mix" of ages, race and gender among the paper's 12 staff members matching his criteria.
Over at The News, he detects scant age diversity: "Out of the nine major columnists, six are white guys over 40." The others are John Niyo, Terry Foster and Laura Berman.
Crain's was an interesting one because every reporter blogs, but if we're going by strictly who's a columnist, you could only claim Keith Crain (a white guy over 40) and Mary Kramer.
The performance evaluation-like post lists these areas for improvement:
- "None of the papers surveyed here can claim a Latino or Arab-American metro columnist, demographics that have seen increases in the region in the last decade or so."
- "We've talked a bit about building gayborhoods in Detroit, yet the only recent time I can recall a gay voice in the editorial pages was a guest column."
- There's not a single metro or sports columnist under 30 and pickings are slim under 40. . . . We talk every day about new, fresh and young people moving into the city, right?"
Part of the chart with Gawker's national post Tuesday.
The original Gawker post sparked sassy social media discussions locally. Detroit community development consultant Francis Grunow, a Wayne State law grad who formerly led Preservation Wayne, posts on Facebook:
PLEASE move along, olds. You had your chance to change the world. Good for you. Now you've really got to let your children try.
On Twitter, 38-year-old opinion columnist Nancy Kaffer of the Free Press comments:
No argument that diversity is important. Just not as simple as "go out, hire young people."
And to keep any ray of optimism from brightening that exchange among local journalists, Bill Shea of Crain's tweets: "Gonna be even worse when we're down to 1 paper, sadly."
(The writer commented under Foley's post to note that Deb Price wrote a Detroit News editorial page column from a gay perspective from 1992-2010).
