Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel Bids Farewell to 'Diversity Queen'

NewsBusters ^ | August 1, 2008 | P.J. Gladnick

[PJ-Comix]

The Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel yesterday bid farewell to their managing editor, Sharon Rosenhause, along with the very position of managing editor itself. One can only hope that the Sun-Sentinel will also abolish the unofficial post of "diversity queen" by which Rosenhause was also known. Many newspapers have a "diversity queen" which almost always means diversity of ethnicity or gender but not diverse opinions. Although Gregory Lewis in his Sun-Sentinel blog enthusiastically gushed that the departing Rosenhause was "the Queen of Newspaper Diversity," the comments on Bob Norman's Broward-Palm Beach New Times Daily Pulp reveal a rather bleak opinion about her and "diversity." An example is this comment from John de Groot:

Pity she wasn't a "champion" for talented journalists capable of knowing the difference between what is interesting and what is not.

And this from "Amy" who apparently had a sad run-in with the diversity queen:

Sharon Rosenhouse has the personality of a wet dish rag, and the energy level of a burnt out journalist way past her prime. She actually walked away from me once while I was in mid-sentence complimenting one of her reporter's articles. Of all the editorial meetings I've ever sat in on, at several different newspapers, the one that she ran just might have been the most depressing and deflated news meeting I've ever seen.

"Disgusted" disgustedly wrote:

I worked at the old San Francisco Examiner at the same time as Greg Lewis and Sharon Rosenhaus and I can assure you not many of my colleagues there felt as fondly towards her as Greg apparently does. She was nasty, rigidly ideological and impossible to work for; after awhile, many reporters, myself included, simply refused to write for her, A1 play not being worth the time and aggravation of dealing with her and her henchman. Her idea of "diversity" was as bigoted and narrow-minded as the whitest Mississippi cracker; her idea of journalism was pure PC propaganda. That she got a shout-out from Betty Medsger, who almost singlehandedly changed the Journalism department at San Francisco State University, my alma mater, from perhaps the best J School in the state to a politics and PC-infested shithole tells you all you need to know about Sharon's "mark" on journalism.

Richard Biebrich "thanked" Rosenhause thusly:

To Sharon,

Thanks for destroying what was one of the best sports desks in the country prior to your tenure at the Sun-Sentinel.

"former Sun-Sentineler" gave an extended sendoff to the diversity queen which incorporated a chronicling of the decline of the Sun-Sentinel:

The Sun-Sentinel's slow, tortuous death may have been inevitable even without the lovely and charismatic Rosenhause as managing editor. But Rosenhause surely helped drive the paper into the ground more quickly than anyone else could have.

Her myopic world view: straight white men---racist and bad; gay white men, okay;, white women, better;, gay white women, very good; gay nonwhite women---time to party and watch Rosie O'Donnell!

Look at Rosenhause's dour, unsmiling mug and can anything enlightened or self-aware be going on there? Like most half-educated ideologues her worldview was a thousand times more insular, arrogant and racist than the injustices she so often congratulated herself on fighting against.

While she was flying around the country scooping up diversity awards, the paper was going down the shithole largely because of the nitwits she hired. The only thing Sharonmodo cared about was hiring non-white non-males, too many of whom were not up to the job and clearly in over their heads, yet unfireable due to the oppressive atmosphere of intimidation, favoritism, and ethnic and gender insulation.

Read Gregory Lewis' appallingly written rimjob and realize this toady no-talent still has a job while Tom Swick---one of the finest travel writers in the country---was just sent packing.

Earl and Sharon are complicit along with the advertising overseers they willfuly handed the newsroom keys over to, in making the paper dumber and dumber and dumber until you can barely look at it without retching. But, hey, she's the queen of diversity!

Granted, there are plenty of wholly craven white guys, namely Earl and Gremillion, who bear even more responsibility for the destruction of whatever quality the Sun-Sentinel once possessed. But one question: How exactly did Rosenhause make the Sun-Sentinel better? If the ship you're trapped on is quickly going under the water,do you feel better knowing the crew is diverse even though they helped steer it onto the rocks?

"still employed" portrayed the diversity queen as an ideologically rigid commissar type:

Sharon Rosenhause gave diversity a bad name. During her time at the Sun-Sentinel, she divided the newsroom into two kinds of people: those who considered her their benefactor, and those who wondered what the hell they had done to piss her off. That's no way to run a dog food factory, let alone the collection of fragile egos that makes up an editorial department. She ruled humorlessly, arbitrarily and fearsomely. Many of the people she hired or promoted in the name of diversity are talented. Greg Lewis, though not a great writer (he'd be the first to admit that), is a good reporter and a man of integrity who is popular with his colleagues and a mentor to all young reporters. Still, because of the way Sharon divided the newsroom, the straight white people Sharon didn't favor felt great resentment bordering on racism.
That's not diversity; that's divisiveness.

And finally this comment from someone who neatly sums up the newsroom obsession with "diversity":

The industry's obsession with "diversity" is/was stupid.

Had we encouraged more diversity of OPINION (y'know IDEAS) in this business we wouldn't have half the country cheering our demise.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

And how many other "diversity queens" remain in newsrooms around the country enforcing diversity in everything except in what counts---opinions?

[PJ-Comix]

Whenever I see the word "diversity" I know it usually isn't going to mean diversity of opinion.

[PJ-Comix]

Broward Bump!

[dennisw]

Sharon Rosenhause: A passion for diversity

10.10.06

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Sharon Rosenhause

At the Sun-Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., the efforts of Sharon Rosenhause, who won the McGruder Diversity Leadership Award in the over-75,000 circulation category, have helped increase the percentage of minority newsroom employees from 19% to more than 29%.

Managing Editor Rosenhause, who attends many conventions and events sponsored by minority journalists' organizations, "has created programs in the newsroom ranging from mentoring to specialized training for minorities who have demonstrated an ability to lead and assume additional responsibilities," Earl Maucker, Sun-Sentinel editor, wrote in his nomination.

Rosenhause's contributions have extended well beyond the Sun-Sentinel.

"Sharon's accomplishments at the Sun-Sentinel alone would justify her selection," said Saundra Keyes, a 2005 winner and professor at the Donald W. Reynolds School of Journalism at the University of Nevada-Reno. "But I know many judges felt, as I did, that this is also a lifetime achievement award. Sharon has been a newsroom leader in some of the most diverse communities in the country, and she has consistently worked to ensure that both her staffs and the coverage they produce reflect those communities."

Rosenhause has been chair of ASNE's Diversity Committee and a member of the advisory board of the Race and Diversity Workshop at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism. She hosted an ASNE Diversity Leadership Institute and proposed and found funding for a Florida Society of Newspaper Editors' multimedia scholarship for diverse college students.

"Sharon's commitment to diversity and her goals as an editor have always been the same: to develop the best, most diverse staff possible, and to produce the best content possible, always reflecting the diversity of the community she covers," said David Zeeck, president of ASNE and executive editor of The News Tribune in Tacoma, Wash. "To Sharon, it's never been solely about a diverse staff. To her, it's ultimately about diverse content and a commitment to excellence. "Her passion for diversity, her unfailing good humor and her unwillingness to accept less than the best are reflections of Bob McGruder's legacy: better newsrooms producing better journalism," Zeeck said.

[dynachrome]

looks like a candidate for Abb’s list!

[dennisw]

Sun Sentinel is well known for having zero high profile Blacks. With this toadish looking woman my guess is feminazi and gay style diversity was her forte

[Interesting Times]

Sharon Rosenhause gave diversity a bad name.

Actually, it looks like she opened a few eyes to how "diversity" generally works in practice - simple bigotry, frosted with a layer of toxic self-righteousness.

[Libloather]

I’m so upset I can’t write...

[dynachrome]

Guilty!

[sionnsar]

Many newspapers have a "diversity queen" which almost always means diversity of ethnicity or gender but not diverse opinions.

Well of course not. Everything in libspeak means its opposite -- "tolerance" is anything but, and the same holds true with "diversity."

And one wonders how long the "queens" will remain female...

[AnAmericanMother]

Diversity: When they all look different, but all think alike.

Look at that woman - her eyes are dead.

[Chode]

Sometimes the Beast looks right into ya. Right into your eyes. And, you know, the thing about the Beast... it's got lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll's eyes. When it comes at ya, it doesn't seem to be living... until it bites ya, and those black eyes roll over white and then... ah then you hear that terrible high-pitched screamin...'>

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

When I attended the 2nd YAF National Convention in Fort Lauderdale in 1963 The Sun-Sentinel was a right wing paper (so was the Orlando Sentinel for that matter). The Florida newspapers have all been bought by national newspaper chains, and been directed into a left wing direction which is both anathema to their readership and fatal to their survival. Good job, guys.

[AnAmericanMother]

It looks like even a mud shark would have more personality than this . . .

[clintonh8r]

I despise the SS and virtually everything about it and everybody associated with it. Still, I hope this is an indication that Howard Greenburg might be trying to give us a good, honest local paper that reports the news rather than bleating endlessly about “human interst” stories, most of which are about homosexuals and ethnic minorities. I’m really glad this dried up old hag is gone.

[Chode]

bingo...

[AnAmericanMother]

[RedMonqey]

"Sharon's commitment to diversity and her goals as an editor have always been the same: to develop the best, most diverse staff possible, and to produce the best content possible, always reflecting the diversity of the community she covers,"

Notice not a word about their duty as newspaper journalists to inform the public to help the voting public make wise, informed opinions about the world at large?

These shiny awards on mantle pieces between the scented candles must look absolutely fabulous in the reflected afterglow of the college professors and newspaper editors emotionaly orgasmic "holier than thou" weekly circle jerks.