Year: 2011

Women breaking journalism’s glass ceiling: The ascent of Jill Abramson and others

Jasmine R. LinabaryLeave a comment

The past two weeks have been filled with women moving up the ranks in journalism. Most barrier-shattering has been the announcement that Jill Abramson will be the new executive editor of The New York Times, the first woman to fill that spot in the paper’s 160-year history.

Many have noted and cheered the historic nature of the moment, including the women who sued the newspaper in 1974 over sex discrimination. Abramson noted that she “stands on the shoulders” of the women who came before her, and even acknowledged some by name during her speech before the Times’ staff.

Columnist Gail Collins, who herself broke a barrier at the Times by becoming its first female editorial page editor, noted how significant the moment is for women: “In this one great paper, maybe we’ve reached the ultimate goal of the entire women’s movement, which is to make it utterly normal for women to be everywhere, including the top.”

While Abramson’s appointment is good news for women, it’s not yet common across the board. Studies, like the “The Global Report on the Status of Women in the News Media” by the International Women’s Media Foundation that came out earlier this year, have identified a general “glass ceiling” for women in U.S. newsrooms once they reach the senior management level, after which their presence falls from 41.5 percent to the 23.3 percent at the top-level management.

But, news like this can help facilitate positive steps forward in changing those percentages, as Poynter’s Jill Geisler suggests in a piece highlighting what Abramson’s appointment could mean for women in journalism. She says it can serve as inspiration and motivation to the many current female journalism students. “Seeing a woman lead a legacy institution into the digital future can be a powerful motivator,” she writes.

Abramson herself has given the nod to the value of her appointment to women in several interviews, but notes she felt it wasn’t as a result of her sex that she achieved the position.

“Number one, I know I didn’t get this job because I’m a woman; I got it because I’m the best qualified person. But nonetheless what it means to me is that the executive editor of the New York Times is such an important position in our society, the Times itself is indispensable to society, and a woman gets to run the newsroom, which is meaningful.” (The Guardian)

Abramson had been pegged as the “heiress-apparent” to replace outgoing executive editor Bill Keller and was described as such in a profile by New York Magazine last fall.

Some have asked whether her gender will have any effect on the newsroom or the paper. Time will tell, but in terms of content and based on her interest in “hard-edged” in-depth investigative stories and international stories, she’s said, “I don’t think anyone is fearful that I’m going to bring soft news on to the front page” (Via the Guardian). And some stories, including this one from Politico, noted the Abramson’s toughness has often been referred to using “masculine” describers. Those include comments like, “She’s got more balls than the New York Yankees.”

However, others have pointed out ways in which feminism, particularly through her writing projects, has always been part of Abramson’s career, including a piece from The Nation calling her a “feminist journalist.”

Outside of her gender, conversation also circled around what her appointment would mean for innovation and for digital advancement. Most reports, including those from Times insiders via Twitter (like this one), have said this move will be positive. Abramson launched her Twitter account Thursday with a humorous exchange with Felix Salmon of Reuters who had predicted she wouldn’t start tweeting until she takes over in September. Her response? “Wrong!”

Moving up and moving on

Aside from Abramson, several other women have been on the move this month. Here are a few:

  • Vivian Schiller, who was forced out as NPR chief executive in March, has been appointed the chief digital officer of NBC News, a newly created position.
  • Katie Couric signed a multi-year contract with ABC to host a new daytime talk show. She will also serve as a contributor to several ABC News programs. Couric recently finished out her contract as “CBS Evening News” anchor, a position that broke barriers by making her the first woman to solo anchor a weekday evening news program on a major network.
  • Susie Ellwood, currently chief executive of the Detroit Media Partnership, was named executive vice president and general manager of USA Today.
  • Also in Gannett Co., Janet Hasson was named president and publisher of The Journal News. She was formerly senior vice president/audience development and strategy for the Detroit Media Partnership, publisher of the Detroit Free Press and The Detroit News.

This is the Gender Report’s Week in Review, a weekly post that highlights some of the major stories related to gender issues this week. Some of these stories may have already appeared in our News Feed or in the week’s Gender Checks. We’ll at times include a longer analysis of stories as well as bring attention to stories that may have slipped through the cracks of the week’s news cycle.

Gender check: 6/9/11 – Midwest

Jasmine R. LinabaryLeave a comment

*Gender Checks are quick examinations of gender representation in individual news articles for the purpose of discovering trends over time. Click here to read more.

Website: St. Louis Post-Dispatch (stltoday.com)

On Stltoday.com, one of the lead articles featured on the home page as of 12:30 p.m. (PST) Thursday, June 9, was titled “Medic critically injured in flurry of gunfire in University City.” Its subject was a fire department medic shot during gunfire outside a laundromat.

Here is its gender breakdown:

–Author: Female

–Human sources  (listed in order mentioned):

1. Male, fire captain

2. Male, city police captain

3. Male, fire captain

Website: St. Louis Beacon

On the St. Louis Beacon, one of the lead articles featured on the home page as of 12:30 p.m. (PST) Thursday, June 9, was titled “Electronic medical records prove to be critical in Joplin disaster.” Its subject was access to medical records in the aftermath of the Joplin tornado.

Here is its gender breakdown:

–Author: Male

–Human sources  (listed in order mentioned):

1. Male, patient

2. Male, chief of technology services company

Notes/analysis: The photo with the story showing hospital services features a number of people, mostly females, though none were quoted in the story.

Gender check: 6/7/11 – West

Jasmine R. LinabaryLeave a comment

*Gender Checks are quick examinations of gender representation in individual news articles for the purpose of discovering trends over time. Click here to read more.

Website: Seattle Times

On the Seattle Times, one of the lead articles featured on the home page as of 7:30 a.m. (PST) Tuesday, June 7, was titled “Financial aid may not keep pace with fast-rising tuition.” Its subject was challenges with students who qualify for need-based aid not receiving it because the state runs out of money.

Here is its gender breakdown:

–Author:
Female

–Human sources (listed in order mentioned):

1. Male, executive director, student association

2. Male, state representative

3. Female, undergraduate student

4. Male, master’s student

5. Female, director of financial aid


Website: Seattle P-I

On the Seattle P-I, one of the lead articles featured on the home page as of 7:30 a.m. (PST) Tuesday, June 7, was titled “Extra beat cops assigned to nightlife areas.” Its subject was plans for stationing extra officers over the summer in “nightlife zones.”

Here is its gender breakdown:

–Author:
Male

–Human sources (listed in order mentioned):

1. Male, police chief

2. Male, assistant chief

Notes/analysis:
 The photo included with the story features three males — the two sources and the mayor.

Database shows women as 28 percent of news sites’ principal staff

Jasmine R. Linabary2 Comments

Approximately 28 percent of the principal staff members at online news outlets are female, at least according to data pulled from the Columbia Journalism Review‘s database of online news sites.

The News Frontier Database is a collection of searchable data and write-ups on 125 outlets, with more added on a regular basis as they fit the criteria. It includes information on the type of coverage, staff sizes, revenue sources and content management systems of the sites along with written profiles and links to CJR coverage.

Most interesting to us was the “principal staff” listing for each outlet in the database. According to the survey news sites are requested to fill out for consideration to be added to the directory, CJR requests a list of the top editorial staff members and titles. It’s suggested news sites stick to naming three individuals, but the directory will include up to five. Sites have offered up names of one to five people who hold a variety of position titles from upper management to writers and contributors and those who do some of everything.

We pulled information from the database June 3 to get a general idea, based on what was provided, of how well women are represented among the positions news sites considered relevant and important to list as “principal staff.”  Aside from the overall finding that women represented 28 percent of those listed, here are some of the other interesting tidbits we discovered from looking at this data:

Missing gender

Most disturbing was the fact that 46.4 percent of the sites in the database had no female listed at all. A male was absent from the principal staff list on only 8.8 percent of sites.

There were a total of 125 sites on the day we pulled the data. Fifteen sites listed more women than men, while the database contained 84 sites where the number of men listed outnumbered the women (This includes those sites with no person of a certain gender listed).

Staff size

We also took a look at the data by editorial staff size. In the case of all 15 sites listed as having one editorial staff member, all of the singular principal staff members were male. One site listed both a male and a female (she was art director), though it was noted that the male was the only paid staff member. This seems to suggest that men are more likely than women to develop and run an online news outlet solo.

When the representation of men and women at the news sites was divided out by the range of editorial staff members, a trend emerged that appears to show women have greater representation among the principal staffs of smaller sites (the exception being the staff of one, see above) and increasingly less representation as the staffs get larger until it hits the “more than 40” range. Here’s how that plays out. For sites with the editorial staff specified, the following percent of principal staff members listed are female:

  • 2 to 5 editorial staff: 32.9 percent
  • 6 to 10 editorial staff: 31.3 percent
  • 11 to 20 editorial staff: 18.9 percent
  • 21 to 40 editorial staff: 9 percent
  • More than 40 editorial staff: 20 percent

Type of coverage

When it came to the type of coverage listed in the database entry, women had parity on hyperlocal sites and for those that covered education with representation hovering between 48 and 50 percent.

No women were included for sites with the type of coverage listed as ethnic, foreign, sports or transportation, though only a few sites from each at this point are included in the database.

Women represented 20 percent or less of the principal staffs for sites that covered business, politics, science and technology. In the case of politics, 11 of the 20 sites with that coverage type did not list a female principal staff member.

The remaining coverage areas — arts and culture, general and investigative — showed women at 26 to more than 34 percent of principal staffs, with investigative at the higher end.

Site location and coverage area

Women were better represented overall from sites identified with a particular state only rather than those that were considered national. Women made up 31.6 percent of the principal staff members listed at state-specific sites versus 20 percent of those from national sites.

Twenty-two of the 37 sites under “national” did not include a woman in their principal staff lists. Only one national site did not list a male and it covered arts and culture.

This information gathered from The News Frontier Database gives us just a glimpse of what the gender breakdowns at these online-only publications might be, at least in the positions considered to be key to the organizations.

To see how these results compare to other studies as well as information we’ve gathered, view our posts on findings and statistics. Additional research on women’s representation in the news media, can be found on our “Useful Resources” page.

Gender check: 6/2/11 – Midwest

Jasmine R. LinabaryLeave a comment

*Gender Checks are quick examinations of gender representation in individual news articles for the purpose of discovering trends over time. Click here to read more.

Website: St. Louis Post-Dispatch (stltoday.com)

On Stltoday.com, one of the lead articles featured on the home page as of 1:45 p.m. (PST) Thursday, June 2, was titled “Nixon: Missouri economy is gaining momentum.” Its subject was the governor speaking on the economy.

Here is its gender breakdown:

–Author: Male

–Human sources  (listed in order mentioned):

1. Male, governor

2. Female, state budget director (reported)

Notes/analysis: The article was mostly about the governor’s statements along with statistics.


Website: St. Louis Beacon

On the St. Louis Beacon, one of the lead articles featured on the home page as of 1:45 p.m. (PST) Thursday, June 2, was titled “Are charter schools illegal in St. Louis? The law works in mysterious ways.” Its subject was the legality of charter schools being questioned after the population dips below a threshold.

Here is its gender breakdown:

–Author: Male

–Human sources  (listed in order mentioned):

1. Male, school board member (via email)

2. Male, general counsel from state department

3. Male, spokesman (unnamed, for the attorney general’s office)

Notes/analysis: The article also cites from different laws and codes applicable to the situation.