Author: Jasmine R. Linabary

In the Spotlight: Q&A with the International Women’s Media Foundation

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Editor’s note: This is part of a series of posts featuring organizations making strides in the area of gender representations in the news. View other posts in this series here.

International Women’s Media Foundation

The Gender Report spoke with Nadine Hoffman, director of programs at the International Women’s Media Foundation, via email about the exciting work the organization is doing. Here’s what she had to say:

1. For those who are unfamiliar with your work, give us your elevator pitch — What is the International Women’s Media Foundation?

The IWMF’s mission is to support the advancement of women journalists worldwide. Since 1990, our organization has built a vibrant global network of individuals dedicated to this objective, with the conviction that women’s full participation in news media is crucial to furthering freedom of the press.

2. What do you consider to be the biggest issue when it comes to the representation of women in journalism and its creation?

“The Global Report on the Status of Women in the News Media”

In March 2011, the IWMF released a groundbreaking study, the Global Report on the Status of Women in the News Media, including data from 522 companies in 59 countries. In our research, we looked at every level of the profession, collecting information from 170,000 news media employees from entry level to top management.

The global report shows that for women journalists in many countries, the glass ceiling is still a real phenomenon. This is especially true at middle and senior management levels. Seventy-three percent of top management jobs are held by men. In some regions, women’s representation is much worse than others. In Asia and Oceana, for example, women only hold 13 percent of senior management jobs.

Gender inequity in newsrooms is glaringly obvious at the top, but in reality it is a pervasive problem across the board. Under-representation of women in newsrooms was found in nearly half (44 percent) of all nations included in the study.

[GR: A panel discussion on this report was held Sept. 13 in conjunction with the Center for International Media Assistance. Contributors to the panel event included the report’s author, Carolyn M. Byerly, a professor at Howard University’s department of journalism; Liza Gross, executive director of the International Women’s Media Foundation; Shirley M. Carswell, deputy executive editor of the Washington Post; Mónica Villamizar, correspondent with al-Jazeera English based in Washington, D.C.; and moderator Suzanne Garment of the CIMA advisory council. View a summation of this panel event and watch for a video here.]

3. How is your organization a part of the solution?

The IWMF works to strengthen the role of women journalists in a number of ways. We actively cultivate women’s leadership by offering innovative training, including recent workshops as part of our Reporting on Women and Agriculture: Africa program in Mali, Uganda and Zambia. Our March 2011 International Conference of Women Media Leaders brought together almost 70 top women news executives from 40 countries to create a global plan of action advancing the status of women in media.

We’re also committed to training journalists – men and women – to employ a gender lens in their reporting , seeking out women as sources, investigating issues that affect them and telling their untold stories.

We are perhaps best known for honoring the bravery of women journalists with our annual Courage in Journalism and Lifetime Achievement Awards. [GR: This year’s recipients will be honored at ceremonies in Los Angeles on Oct. 24 and New York on Oct. 27. Read about these women here.]

4. What project are you currently working on that you’re most excited about? Share a little bit about it.

Our Women Entrepreneurs in the Global Digital News Frontier program is one that we are really excited about. With generous support from the Ford Foundation, we’re giving seed funding to women journalists who want to start their own news enterprises, and supporting them through the first year of their entrepreneurial endeavors. We’ve created a call series tailored specifically to their professional development needs, featuring some amazing experts, and we’ve also offered an ongoing coaching component. We hope to expand this program in the coming year to include international women entrepreneurs.

5. What needs does your organization have? How can people get involved?

The IWMF is a small non-profit, and we rely on the strength of our network to advance our cause. We are always looking to enlist new supporters who share our mission. There are several easy ways to get involved

  • Follow us on Twitter @iwmf.
  • Like and friend us on Facebook.
  • Subscribe to receive IWMF updates on our website – www.iwmf.org.
  • Donate online – https://www.iwmf.org/donate.aspx.
  • Contact us about opportunities to collaborate on future programs and events.

Find out more about the International Women’s Media Foundation by visiting its website at www.iwmf.org. View our post on the foundation’s “Global Report on the Status of Women in the News Media” here.

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Are you a member of an organization that looks to address issues of gender representation in the news? Contact us about being next month’s “In the Spotlight” organization by emailing genderreport@gmail.com.

Gender check: 9/15/11 – Midwest

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*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 the Stltoday.com, one of the lead articles featured on the home page as of 6:45 a.m. (PDT) Thursday, Sept. 15, was titled “Mo. Legislature stuck on local control, Aerotropolis.” Its subject was two issues that hit a snag in the legislature — city control of the police department and a project to make St. Louis a hub for freight flights between China and the Midwest.

Here is its gender breakdown:

–Author: Female and male (shared byline)

–Human sources  (listed in order mentioned):

  1. Female, state senator (D)
  2. Male, state House speaker (R)
  3. Male, state senator (D)
  4. Male, representative of police officers’ group
  5. Male, former president of the city police officers’ association
  6. Male, state senator (R)
  7. Male, state senator (R)

Notes/analysis: Keep in mind that eight of the 34 members of the Missouri Legislature are female.


Website: St. Louis Beacon

St. Louis Beacon, 9/15/2011

On the St. Louis Beacon, one of the lead articles featured on the home page as of 6:45 a.m. (PDT) Thursday, Sept. 15, was titled “Missouri legislature adjourns special session for week.” Its subject was the same as above, but with a different framing that included the overall economic package containing the freight project.

Here is its gender breakdown:

–Author: Female

–Human sources  (listed in order mentioned):

  1. Male, state Senate president pro tem (R)
  2. Male, state House speaker (R)
  3. Male, state senator (R)

Notes/analysis: The article also quotes a statement from the governor’s office and a statement from a right to life group. The article includes three mug shots, all of men.

Gender check: 9/13/11 – West

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*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

“We’re conserving, but water rates may climb” – Seattle Times 9/13/2011

On the Seattle Times, one of the lead articles featured on the home page as of 9 a.m. (PDT) Tuesday, Sept. 13, was titled “We’re conserving, but water rates may climb.” Its subject was water rates.

Here is its gender breakdown:

–Author: Female

–Human sources  (listed in order mentioned):

  1. Male, consultant
  2. Male, city council’s utilities committee chairman
  3. Male, analyst
  4. Male, chamber of commerce vice president for government relations
  5. Male, member of water system advisory committee
  6. Male, director
  7. Male, city council president
  8. Male, manager of watershed education center
  9. Male, senior civil engineer on the project

Notes/analysis: Four photos are included with the article. All by male photographers. No visible women.


Website: Seattle P-I

On the Seattle P-I, one of the lead articles featured on the home page as of 9 a.m. (PDT) Tuesday, Sept. 13, was titled “A Jersey guy’s love for the Olympics.” Its subject was Bill Bradley’s role in a dam removal project to reopen part of Olympic National Park to spawning salmon.

Here is its gender breakdown:

–Author: Male

–Human sources  (listed in order mentioned):

  1. Male, former U.S. senator (subject)
  2. Male, late Alaska governor

CNN documentary to feature women of 9/11

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Countless special reports related to 9/11 have been released thus far leading up to Sunday’s 10-year anniversary, including The New York Times’ “The Reckoning.” One project, however, places special emphasis on the women – “Beyond Bravery: The Women of 9/11“by CNN’s Soledad O’Brien.

In the Reporter’s Notebook for the piece, O’Brien states that the documentary aims to address the question of a little boy during a visit of a female firefighter from 9/11 to his classroom: He asked her “how she could be a ‘fireman’ if she was a girl.” The documentary aims to tell the stories of 9/11’s women and give voice to their heroism and their challenges.

The project includes a look at the book “Women At Ground Zero” written by Susan Hagen and Mary Carouba. Here’s a sample segment from the documentary:

The documentary is set to air at 10 p.m. ET/PT on Sept. 11. More sample segments can be viewed along with the reporter’s notebook and a link to an educator and parent guide here.

In addition to this documentary on CNN, a number of other news outlets have provided stories about women’s experiences including the following:

Did you find other 9/11 coverage of women? Share your findings in the comment section below.

In other news

The New York Times‘ first female executive editor, Jill Abramson, stepped into the position on Tuesday. Several posts related to the beginning of her tenure as editor circled the web, including a memo announcing her leadership team.

Abramson herself sent out a tweet Tuesday regarding her new role:

The announcement that Abramson would succeed Bill Keller came in June, making her the first woman to hold that title in the paper’s 160-year history. Read our post following that announcement here.

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.

Lowest percentage of female authors yet in August’s New Media Index count

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August’s look at articles in the New Media Index produced an eight-month low in female bylines and one of the lowest percentages of female sources. Time will tell whether these numbers are related to a change in the methodology for determining the top five most discussed and linked to articles on the web.

Here at The Gender Report, we’ve been monitoring the web’s top articles based on links provided in the Project for Excellence in Journalism‘s weekly New Media Index roundups since January. These posts chronicle the top five news stories and opinion pieces around the web in a Monday to Friday week based on commentary on blogs and social media sites. We’ve chosen to focus on the top five in the blogosphere.

Aug. 1 marked some changes to the New Media Index report. PEJ updated its methodology to use more sites to track the top stories and began using a larger sample size and range of sources. (Read more about those change and the process here.)

For the purpose of our study, this has meant changes in the sources of links. During the first seven months of the year, the majority of links provided mostly came from the LA Times, Washington Post and in less frequency the BBC, and were mostly news articles with some opinion pieces (in other words, almost exclusively traditional media sources). This month we’ve noticed more diversity in the link sources, including from blogs and company’s direct postings.

When more than one link was provided on the topic, we’ve monitored the first mentioned or the one that appears based on the writing to be more dominant, unless it is mentioned that two articles shared the attention for that particular subject. This happened in higher volumes this month, resulting in a larger sample of articles overall.

In July, we released our findings from the first six months of monitoring. In that time, women were 20.2 percent of sources and had 31.3 percent of bylines (of articles by a person or several of one gender or the other, not including shared bylines between a woman and a man).

Here’s what we found specifically in the past month:

August 2011

PEJ New Media Index: August 1-5, 2011

Between Aug. 1 and Sept. 2, the New Media Index included 33 articles that could be checked. Reoccurring topics included the 2012 presidential campaign and the new iPhone — both appeared in the top five in four out of the five weeks. More than one link was included for nine topics. One link related to the iPhone in week four was no longer functioning and no link was provided for the No. 3 story of Google buying Motorola in week three.

Here’s what we found:

  • Women were 14.1 percent of sources in this month’s articles. The articles contained 67 male sources and only 11 female sources. This is the second lowest female source total we’ve seen. The low thus far came in May with women at 13.3 percent.
  • Most shockingly 18 out of the 33 linked to articles contained no human sources at all (though one or two did reference a company or an unnamed and unidentified official). Nearly all of those links were to posts or reviews as opposed to traditional news articles. In addition, eight articles featured only male sources.
  • Only three articles or posts were written or produced by a woman while 27 articles were by men. That means women wrote only 10 percent of articles or posts by authors of one gender or the other. Two were uncredited and one was by staff. That percentage of female authors fell below our previous low of 11.1 percent in May.

We’ll be keeping an eye on these findings in the coming months to see if we deduce other trends emerging now that the methodology for the top five articles has changed. For past months’ findings as well as other statistics on gender and the online news, visit our findings and statistics page or view our six-month recap of all of our projects and studies here.