Demographic Realities

There is a job opening at my office and I hope we don’t hire another white male.

Our staff of 10 is all white. Seven of the employees are men. Eight of the workers are older than 40. That doesn’t make us demographically representative of the country, or our readers.

I’ve heard the argument that we should hire the “most qualified candidate,” but it seems strange how that person time and again happens to be white. There also is the reality that Springfield is one of the whitest cities in the country. Well, it might be time to look beyond the normal pool of candidates.

While I’m not in favor of quotas, it just makes demographic and ultimately economic sense to diversify the staff. The denomination we cover in the magazine is 40 percent non-white. While white writers like me try to do their best understanding culture from a black, Hispanic, Native American or Asian viewpoint, perhaps a non-white staff member could bring a more authentic perspective to an article. However subtle, when the four primary staff writers are all middle-aged or elderly white males, the articles have a homogenous tone to them.

I’m glad there are more ethnic minorities among the 800 employees in the organization than when I started 13 years ago. There are even a couple of African-American executives. But the reality is, if you want to find a non-white person in the complex, the best odds are to look in the kitchen.

Of course not hiring a minority for the post might not be the worst outcome. That would be if the powers to be decide to eliminate the position entirely. In this economy, that might happen.

The Real Twinkies Tragedy

Americans have raided grocery store shelves across the country to stock up on Twinkies, Ding Dongs and Ho Hos now that the 85-year-old manufacturer is in liquidation.

I find it amusing that people are getting so sentimental about a company that promotes junk foods. There is no such outcry when a magazine goes out of business.

Hostess built its trade largely by helping generations of Americans grow fat. There won’t be any shortage of junk food options now that Hostess has gone belly up.

But the real tragedy here is not the demise of Twinkies; it’s the unwillingness of workers to compromise in order to stay employed. Hostess workers went on strike and the company opted to go out of business rather than engage in prolonged negotiations with its bakers’ union.

That means 18,500 more Americans have lost their jobs, in three dozen plants and 565 distribution centers. Food is one of the few commodities that we don’t import en masse from China.

“Our members decided they were not going to take any more abuse from a company they have given so much to for so many years,” Frank Hurt, the bakers’ union president, said Friday.

Those union workers who refused to take pay, health insurance and pension cuts are living in denial. Years into a recession isn’t the time to be demanding more concessions from your employer. It’s hard enough for college graduates to find work today, let alone factory workers.

There isn’t a plentiful choice of any kind of job today, unless you happen to be an airplane pilot or physician. No matter if wages and benefits have been cut, it’s better to keep a job that to force your company into insolvency to prove a point.

Election Choices

Mercifully, Election Day — and an end to all the snarky campaign banter — is just over a week away. Unlike four years ago, the outcome is in doubt. Barack Obama rode a wave of hope and excitement to the White House in 2008. However, even ardent supporters are muted this time around, and many have abandoned the president altogether.

Obama has failed to deliver on promises to turn the economy around, and just as with many other recent presidential campaigns, this one likely will hinge on how voters believe they will be impacted in their pocketbooks. Despite being in office for four years, Obama continues to blame President Bush, Republican lawmakers and many others for the faltering economy and even escalating deficit. As we’ve seen with the deaths of U.S. embassy personnel Libya, the president refuses to take blame for anything that goes wrong under his watch. A little humility might win him some votes.

Mitt Romney has ridden a wave of anti-Obama sentiment, but has failed to fully capitalize because he still has plenty of sticky issues. By repeating the same lines for three debates he appears robotic. Many see him primarily as a rich businessman-turned-politician out of touch with the problems of common folk. And he is yet another old white guy nominated by the GOP, albeit healthier than his predecessors.

In addition to the economy, the election will be determined by which party better motivates voters to get to the polls. An unenthusiastic base could spell trouble for Obama, if millions decide to skip voting rather than reward him for another four years of mediocrity. For Romney, it will depend on energizing evangelical voters, many of whom would have to ignore their beliefs that Mormonism is an aberrant religion.

I’ve talked to several people who don’t think it matters who is in the White House, although obviously these men paint starkly different portraits of America’s future. I can’t really blame a jaded electorate. The candidates have spent months not so much spelling out what they would do in the next four years, but instead focusing on how to best demean the opponent.

Print Journalism Slide Continues

I’m afraid those of us who make a living from print journalism are deceiving ourselves. The loss of revenue and subscribers continues unabated in an era when most readers don’t want to bother paying for content they think they can find for free on the Internet.

The announcement by Newsweek last week that it would cease publication after 79 years is a case in point. At 1.5 million subscribers, Newsweek certainly has many more readers than a lot of publications going belly up. But the subscriber base has dropped in half in the past seven years and advertising is virtually non-existent. The periodical has been bleeding red ink for years.

But CEO Baba Shetty failed to face reality when he told The Wall Street Journal that Newsweek would gain “hundreds of thousands” of online subscribers at $25 annually during the next year. Currently Newsweek has just 27,000 online-only subscriptions.

Advertisers who shunned the print edition won’t flock to Newsweek’s website. Neither will readers. News has been missing from Newsweek for a long time. Most cover stories these days are first-person opinion pieces with no sources. Newsweek is a shell of its former self, masquerading as a current events resource. 

Nearly all magazines are in financial trouble. My former employer, Christianity Today, last week let go Senior Associate Editor Mark Moring, who had worked for the company for 19 years. I hope the day never comes when CT goes out of business, because it truly provides a clarion voice for the evangelical world.

Pentecostal Evangel, where I now work, isn’t immune from subscriber attrition, although it helps that the magazine is distributed primarily in bulk to churches. Yet not that long ago I had two full-time news writers on staff; now I’m a one-man department.

Magazines must strike a delicate presence between having a web presence with easy-access material combined with marketing their product as unique, valuable and unavailable elsewhere. Our magazine doesn’t put everything online for free that is in the print version, and I think that’s wise.

I rue the day when we have only a few magazines left and professional journalists become obsolete. Our society will be ill-informed if all we have to read are opinion-laced blogs.

Downsized Office Space

Our cramped workplace had to consolidate further last week under orders from management. I escaped the shift to small cubicles that three of my co-workers had to endure, but I participated in an office-wide downsizing of space due to the department’s loss of storage areas.

The staff had to toss many materials that had been kept in previously unused offices. Most of the reference works hadn’t been consulted for years. Somehow the important issues and topics of 1993 aren’t that pressing in 2012.

Dozens of books and magazines that had been on shelves in spare nooks and crannies now have been carted to a warehouse across the street or to a historical archives vault down the hall.

The whole process prompted me to weed through magazines I’ve kept for nearly 20 years in my office cabinets. Most of them went to the recycling bin last week. This de-cluttering exercise left me with the impression that we save too much stuff. I have too many books and CDs on my shelves at home. Usually I only read or listen to a handful of favorites while the remainder collect dust. It’s probably time to do some more sorting at my house.

Dozens of books from our office also went to a giveaway pile in the hallway, where employees from other departments quickly snatched nearly all of them up. Those volumes will now sit around on their shelves for years.

Football Worship

The older I get the less enthralled I am with professional football — and the more irritated I become with those who are.

I spent much of my early adult years watching NFL football all Sunday afternoon. I would be anxious to get out of church by noon so I wouldn’t miss the kickoff. And I would be upset to leave for Sunday evening services — back when those used to be held — when a game wasn’t over.

Now I have to wonder why. None of those games added anything to my life. They just soaked up time that would have been better spent with my wife and sons. A few years ago I kicked the pro football habit. I haven’t watched an NFL game, including the Super Bowl, in quite a while.

I appreciate the skill of talented athletes, but why should I devote myself to following them? If the Chiefs or Rams or Bears or Packers win or lose, it doesn’t make any difference. Unlike in my early adulthood, Americans can now watch pro football not only all Sunday afternoon and Monday night, but also Sunday night and Thursday night as well.

Some of my Christian friends are more devoted to football than they are to the Lord. Are they sitting down with God for 10 hours a week? Do they post Facebook sayings from God every day as they do about their favorite team? Do they wear clothing declaring the glory of God as they do for gridiron players?

I don’t understand all the hero worship for athletes who fans will never know personally, people whose personal lives are frequently consumed with immoral behavior. What is this weird attachment to a violent sport? Is this a diversion to avoid dealing with important issues in life?

Water: A Precious Commodity

We live in a country subdivision that relies on a well for water. A great benefit to this is the low cost — $180 a year, no matter how much water we use. The downside is that the well or pipes periodically have to be shut down for maintenance or repair, nearly always without warning.

Usually this means an hour or two of inconvenience. But late Friday afternoon the well went down for what turned out to be nearly 24 hours. Not the most opportune time, as 25 guests began to arrive in our home for a church meeting. Sorry, folks, you can’t flush the toilet.

Dirty dishes from the gathering stacked up on the kitchen counter. As Saturday morning rolled around, we looked for innovative ways to get some water: raiding the stash of bottled water from the garage spare refrigerator; emptying the tray from the dehumidifier on the porch; grabbing ice cubes from the kitchen refrigerator.

Later in the morning, with the well trouble still unfixed, I drove into town with three coolers and loaded up water from my son’s spigot. Back home, at least we could pour a bucket down the toilet when necessary. By Saturday evening the water we take so much for granted began flowing again.

By then we realized how much we depend on water, and not just for flushing. Without turning on the tap we can’t fill the coffeepot, wash our dirty hands, brush our teeth, take a shower, wash dishes, fill the bird bath or water plants.

I always thought losing electrical power was the worst outage a home could experience. Now I’m not so sure.