Diversity Diaries: Sharon Rosenhause

By Sharon Rosenhause
Managing editor, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

09.04.02

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A well-prepared job applicant recently asked why I was so committed to diversity.

I told him the story of how I got a lot of praise and not much of a raise from the managing editor at my first newspaper.

Since there were few secrets in the newsroom, I knew what others had gotten and complained about the paltry amount.

Well, he harrumphed, and pointed out that I didn't have a family to support.

Ah, and so the light bulb went on. And stayed on.

I'm certain I didn't call myself a feminist at that moment, but that's surely when I became one.

And that moment was without question the beginning of my personal and professional commitment to inclusion and to diversity.

Over the years, as I've encountered so many women who were truly and totally committed to diversity, I've wondered if there wasn't something about our gender that made us get it, that made us want to make a difference.

I say that having been the "first" too many times in my career.

Maybe it's because women (I almost wrote "of a certain age," but I don't know anyone who would argue that our newsrooms today are models of diversity in terms of gender or any other category) in journalism have had to put up with everything from stupid comments (the raise example) to worse. Much worse.

While it's hard to imagine anyone saying anything quite that offensive today, it's hardly time to celebrate. The glass ceiling is still very real, and most of our newsrooms hardly reflect the communities we cover.

That's why the light bulb has never gone out for me.

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Diversity Diaries
Diversity Diaries is a collection of true stories from newspaper people around the country who have experienced or observed pivotal moments in diversity.  10.04.01