Jason Sandford
Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.
There’s an interesting document on the WLOS web site that you may not have noticed before. It’s a required EEO report that shows what efforts the local TV station made to reach out to hire women and minorities. I think it was about five years ago that the federal government required these reports to be compiled and published on the Web each year.
WLOS seems to do a so-so job of making minority hires, though I’m only judging by what I see on the air. The male-to-female ratio feels about right. And there’s Cherub Charu and Darcel as minorities, which seems low. Does CuevasSimon count? Who am I missing? You’d think that someone of Darcel’s stature could bring in more African-American reporters.
The report shows the number of open positions, the “recruitment source of hiree” and the total number of interviewees from all sources for each open position.
WLOS had 11 interviewees each for two account executive positions, with the recruitment source of hiree “WLOS/WSBC Web site.” Eight people interviewed for another account executive job, with “employee referral” listed as the recruitment source. Seven more interviewed for yet another account exec job, with the Asheville Citizen-Times listed as the recruitment source of hiree.
Seven people were interviewed for weekend weather anchor/reporter, with the Web site again being the recruitment source for the person hired.
Most of the rest of the report goes on to list all the recruitment sources, and a bunch of zeroes for the total number of interviewees from each source. Zeroes from the following sources:
Asheville-Buncombe Office of Minority Affairs
California Chicano News Media Association
Edna Campos, executive director of ElPueblo
Johnson C. Smith College career center
Moorehouse College
Local NAACP chapter
National Association of Minorities in Communication
N.C. Services for the Blind
Shaw University
Western Carolina University
Winston-Salem State University
The list goes on. The biggest source, by far, of interviewees was the WLOS Web site.
