Early in my career, I was assigned to spend some time on the West Coast calling on California magazine wholesalers and chain store retailers. One morning I dropped into one of the six independent magazine wholesalers that serviced the LA metro area. From the front desk, I was escorted into a noisy and smokey "Publisher’s Representatives" room. Rep Rooms were often the dingiest rooms in the warehouse where representatives of national distributors and publishers worked on the distributions of their magazines.Wholesalers were required to make this space and their distribution records available as part of their agreements with their suppliers, the national distributors of books and magazines. They often resented having to do so, hence the grubby and crowded spaces. The publisher rep I was supposed to work with was an older man who was a few months shy of retirement. I spent a very interesting morning learning some helpful shortcuts, and got his version of the history of the business I had stumbled into so soon after graduation.Just before lunch he turned to me and said, “Do you know when this industry went to sh*t?”Well, that rocked me back a bit. I wasn’t aware that the business had, in fact, gone to sh*t. My first thought was, "What have I gotten myself into?"I think I muttered something like, “Um, no, I don’t. When?”“When they let all these g*d d*amned women in. Look at them all!”I looked around the room and saw that about a quarter of the people in the room were women.In the first article below, Media Post reporter Ray Schultz discusses a report from Texas congressman Joaquin Castro that points out that Hispanics are underrepresented in the media workforce.Underrepresentation of minority groups has long been an issue in the news media and in the magazine business. Anecdotally it seems (To me, anyway), that women are making up for lost time and filling the ranks. Most of the people I report to now are women and I have to say that for the most part, they appear to be better managers than stapler throwing, binder tossing male managers of old.However, I agree with the report: Ethnic and racial minorities do seem underrepresented. That impacts what we read, what we listen to, and what we watch. It impacts how the industry grows and innovates. As an industry, we can do better.We need to do better.
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It's Tuesday: Diversity is Not A Four Letter…
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Early in my career, I was assigned to spend some time on the West Coast calling on California magazine wholesalers and chain store retailers. One morning I dropped into one of the six independent magazine wholesalers that serviced the LA metro area. From the front desk, I was escorted into a noisy and smokey "Publisher’s Representatives" room. Rep Rooms were often the dingiest rooms in the warehouse where representatives of national distributors and publishers worked on the distributions of their magazines.Wholesalers were required to make this space and their distribution records available as part of their agreements with their suppliers, the national distributors of books and magazines. They often resented having to do so, hence the grubby and crowded spaces. The publisher rep I was supposed to work with was an older man who was a few months shy of retirement. I spent a very interesting morning learning some helpful shortcuts, and got his version of the history of the business I had stumbled into so soon after graduation.Just before lunch he turned to me and said, “Do you know when this industry went to sh*t?”Well, that rocked me back a bit. I wasn’t aware that the business had, in fact, gone to sh*t. My first thought was, "What have I gotten myself into?"I think I muttered something like, “Um, no, I don’t. When?”“When they let all these g*d d*amned women in. Look at them all!”I looked around the room and saw that about a quarter of the people in the room were women.In the first article below, Media Post reporter Ray Schultz discusses a report from Texas congressman Joaquin Castro that points out that Hispanics are underrepresented in the media workforce.Underrepresentation of minority groups has long been an issue in the news media and in the magazine business. Anecdotally it seems (To me, anyway), that women are making up for lost time and filling the ranks. Most of the people I report to now are women and I have to say that for the most part, they appear to be better managers than stapler throwing, binder tossing male managers of old.However, I agree with the report: Ethnic and racial minorities do seem underrepresented. That impacts what we read, what we listen to, and what we watch. It impacts how the industry grows and innovates. As an industry, we can do better.We need to do better.