A Dearth of Diversity

A DEARTH OF DIVERSITY
[SOURCE: Chicago Tribune 1/30, AUTHOR: Ed Sherman]
The media are making a big deal out of Lovie Smith and Tony Dungy becoming the first African-American head coaches in the Super Bowl. Good. It provides the perfect contrast to an untold story about the media. In the previous 40 Super Bowls, only one African-American has sat in the broadcast booth: Greg Gumbel called the play-by-play for the 2001 and 2004 games for CBS. In a sport where more than 60 percent of the players are African-American, there never has been an African-American analyst in the booth for a Super Bowl. That's stunning, considering the large pool of African-Americans who not only are the game's biggest stars but also are glib and quotable. The lack of diversity in the media goes beyond the Super Bowl booth. While African-Americans have prominent roles as hosts and analysts on the various NFL studio shows, there are only a handful of African-American play-by-play voices and analysts working NFL games for the networks. The situation isn't limited to television. Scanning the vast pressroom at the Miami Convention Center, you hardly see any African-American faces. Here's why: African-American men and women make up 7 percent of all sportswriters. CBS host James Brown contends the situation won't change in front of the camera until it changes behind the scenes. He says the networks need to hire more African-Americans as producers and in executive roles. "How many people of color currently occupy those positions?" Brown said. "I don't know of any African-Americans in senior positions. Those are the people who make the decisions." The analyst situation is completely baffling. The only African-American to have a leading role as a game analyst was O.J. Simpson on "Monday Night Football" during the '80s. Former African-American players such as Tom Jackson, Shannon Sharpe, Michael Irvin and Deion Sanders have assumed high-profile positions on the studio shows. But none has risen to the same status in the booth.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/football/bears/cs-070129sherman,1,5...

* See also --
20 Years of Superbowls Yielded 1400 Commercials and 1.72 Billion Ad Dollars
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