Hard News: Women Underrepresented

Tuesday, June 04, 2013

Kate Nagle, GoLocalWorcester News Contributor

A recent report issued by the Women's Media Center points to "stubborn gender inequality" in the ways that women are employed and represented in news, entertainment and technology related media.

The "Status of Women in U.S. Media 2013" report states that with females making up 51 percent of the U.S. population, there are "business, societal and cultural imperatives that demand gender equality and equal participation."

Shining the Light on Disparities

The Women’s Media Center – founded by Jane Fonda, Robin Morgan, and Gloria Steinem – has the stated goal of making women visible and powerful in media.

The report issued comprehensive look at data, studies, and issues that affect women and the media found among the following:

* At its current pace, it will take until 2085 for women to reach parity with men in leadership roles in government/politics, business, entrepreneurship and nonproﬁts.

* Only 17 women at media and technology companies are on Fortune’s 50 Most Powerful Women in Business.

* By a nearly 3 to 1 margin, male front-page bylines at top newspapers outnumbered female bylines in coverage of the 2012 presidential election. Men were also far more likely to be quoted than women in newspapers, television and public radio.

* On Sunday TV talk shows, one survey found that only 25 percent of guests were female.

According to the Women's Media Center website, WMC states that "media influence is one of the most powerful economic and cultural forces today. By deciding who gets to talk, what shapes the debate, who writes, and what is important enough to report, media shape our understanding of who we are and what we can be."

GoLocal talked with both local and national media and journalism experts to get their perspectives both on the report -- and it's significance.

National Experts Weigh In

Alan Mutter, who started as a newspaper columnist and editor at the Chicago Daily News and later as City Editor of the Chicago Sun-Times, is currently with the Graduate School of Journalism at UC Berkeley and also is a consultant specializing in corporate initiatives and new media ventures involving journalism and technology.

"The digital media democratize both the creation and consumption of media, so it theoretically is possible for more women than ever before to create media brands," said Mutter.

He continued, "The enrollment at Graduate School of Journalism at UC-Berkeley, where I teach, is overwhelmingly female. Based on this observation, it seems fair to speculate that women will women will continue to claim an ever-greater role in the future of media, including that is covered and how it is covered."

Kelly McBride, Senior Faculty at The Poynter Institute for Media Studies, saw the prospects for women in journalism as remaining relatively stagnant.

"I see this problem firsthand in the work I do," said McBride. "I really appreciated that they used the word "stubborn" in the report. I think that's really appropriate. I came into my career in the late 80s, and I feel like we haven't made any progress."

"There was a lot of progress made in the point I stepped into my career, women were starting to become leaders," she continued. "I think we made about 75% of our progress by that point. Getting that last 25% is difficult."

"Once you get that far, you can let up, not be as intentional, and the public lets you get away with it," said McBride. "The other things is that women have lost ground in the economic and tech shifts we've seen. The reasons behind that are various, but part of what I speculate is that the industry has gotten smaller, so women leaders have disproportionately suffered."

"We haven't seen a lot of turnover at the leadership. Baby boomers aren't leaving voluntarily. it's very hard to create any sort of movement. We see more women coming into the business -- but not staying in the business."

"I see something much more insidious....qualified, accomplished women leave the business voluntarily because they just can't see a pathway to the top."

McBride didn't necessarily see digital media as changing those trends.

"There are a number of startups out there, but they're similarly male dominated," said McBride. "I know a small, hip, cool one in NY that has found itself under criticism under the past year and a half -- because they have all men in the newsroom."

"It's because the tech world is male dominated. The diversity problem -- gender, philosophical, ethical, racial.....the problem begins with the the fact that if you have similar people doing similar things, its's hard to break out of that."

Local Viewpoint

Meg Heckman, a graduate student at Northeastern University's School of Journalism, spoke with GoLocalWorcester about her work and views on the issue.

"I really can't speak to the gender breakdown in the Boston-area, although there's no reason to believe it's any different from the national statistics outlined in the report. Regardless of geographic location, the chronic under-representation of women in journalism is a real problem," said Heckman.

She continued, "News organizations are only valuable if they're able to authentically reflect all aspects of the communities they cover. That's true in terms of race, gender and socio-economics. Writing well about people who are different from you is part of being a good reporter, so I'm certainly not saying that only women can write about women and men about men. But the people deciding who and what gets covered and how those stories are framed remain overwhelmingly male -- which means you sometimes end up with headlines like these."

"The question of what role women will play in the future of news is an interesting one -- so interesting that it's the focus of my thesis. I'm in the early stages of my research, but so far I've found that women are very much a part of the emerging digital landscape," said Heckman. "It's still a big question as to whether they'll be able to earn the same credibility as their male peers. (I wrote more about this notion of credibility and personal brand in this blog post.)"

When asked about rising stars in Massachusetts, Heckman said, "Check out Latitude News, a Cambridge-based startup run by a woman." Latitude News' website lists Marina Balinska as its founder.

"Journalism is also becoming much more technical, which is why efforts to get girls and women involved in tech are so crucial," said Heckman.