There’s an interesting discussion going

on right now on an e-mail list to which I subscribe, that of the national

editorial writers’ association. One of its members is soliciting advice on

what to do to keep a colleague from quitting journalism. The distressed

colleague is a reporter who is a member of an ethnic minority. Her editors

keep assigning her to do stories on the “diversity” beat. It’s driving her

crazy, because they apparently see her as only qualified to cover “minority”

stories. As another writer on the list pointed out, this is the kind of

result you get when news managers buy into the idea that they should hire

minorities because only minorities are qualified to report properly on

minority communities. I don’t blame the poor young reporter for being

frustrated, but it must be said that this is the logical consequence of this

ridiculous notion of diversity that the news biz has bought into re: hiring

practices.