*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.
On the Seattle Times, one of the lead articles featured on the home page as of 1 p.m. (MST) Tuesday, April 12, was titled “Seattle won’t get shuttle — but will get full-size simulator.” Its subject was news that Seattle’s Museum of Flight would not be getting a space shuttle but would get a full-fuselage shuttle trainer.
Here is its gender breakdown:
–Author: Male
–Human sources (listed in order mentioned):
1. Male, NASA administrator
2. Female, former astronaut who led effort
3. Female, U.S. senator
4. Male, U.S. representative
5. Female, Washington governor
6. Male, Museum of Flight president and CEO
Notes/analysis: This article had an even split of male and female sources.
On the Seattle P-I, one of the lead articles featured on the home page as of 1 p.m. (MST) Tuesday, April 12, was titled “Charges dropped against men accused in Ballard fight with off-duty Seattle officer.” Its subject was about prosecutors dropping charges against three males accused of fighting a male off-duty police officer. The men claim they saw a man “accosting” a woman and were moving to intervene while the officer said he was following and confronting a woman who had tried to steal his coat.
The biggest news story of the week was the potential shutdown of the federal government if Congress wasn’t able to reach a compromise on the budget. President Barack Obama signed a stop gap bill into law today to keep the government in action through next week until the budget deal for the rest of the fiscal year reached Friday night is finalized.
The hold-up and the threat of shutdown was directly tied to issues of abortion and, as a result, women’s health.
It appears the main abortion provisions Republicans sought were stripped out of the deal in exchange for deeper cuts in spending, including an effort to defund Planned Parenthood. However, a separate vote will be held on that issue next week, though Democrats are anticipated to defeat it. The compromise does, however, contain a provision that restricts abortion financing in Washington, D.C.
Though the focus of the debate is around Planned Parenthood’s abortion services, federal funds already can’t be used for abortions. As we’ve previously noted, only about 3 percent of its health services are abortion related. It provides family planning, cancer screenings, treatment for sexually transmitted diseases and other services for both men and women but particularly for low-income women. (For a complete breakdown of Planned Parenthood does, check out this chart from the Washington Post).
The fact that this became a major issue in holding up a budget compromise reflected the culmination of several months worth of Republican action on issues of abortion and women’s health that the Gender Report has highlighted in earlier posts.
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.
Women make up about 36.9 percent of those working full-time at daily U.S. newspapers the American Society of News Editors reported today.
ASNE released key findings from its 2011 newsroom employment survey, which mainly focused on the fact that minority numbers plunged for third year in a row while newsroom employment increased slightly.
While the bulk of the organization’s report on its Newsroom Census focused on these issues, an updated gender breakdown was noted in its other findings. Women working full-time at daily papers totaled 15,400 and men accounted for nearly 25,300 in the survey. Minority women in the survey made up 19.3 percent of female staffers, while minority men accounted for just 10.8 percent of male staffers.
About 58.4 percent of daily print and online newspapers responded to this year’s survey. The report does note that responding newsrooms identified 1,581 journalists as working online only and broke out that 18.72 percent were minority. It did not specify a gender breakdown of those journalists.
In its Newsroom Census tables that include data from 1999 through 2010, ASNE shows that the percentage of women in newsrooms has remained relatively stable in that time period. It hovered between a high of 37.7 percent in 2006 and a low of 36.6 percent, which came in 2010.
For more studies and resources on gender in the news media, view our “Useful Resources” page.
*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.
On Stltoday.com, one of the lead articles featured on the home page as of 1 p.m. (MST) Thursday, April 7, was titled “2nd Winfield High student being questioned in alleged plot for school massacre.” Its subject was an update attached to an initial story about a student being arrest for allegedly plotting a mass shooting at his school.
Here is its gender breakdown:
–Author: Female
–Human sources (listed in order mentioned):
1. Male, sheriff’s department major
2. Male, suspect (according to police)
Notes/analysis: All three students referred to in this story as being involved, questioned or informants are male.
On the St. Louis Beacon, one of the lead articles featured on the home page as of 1 p.m. (MST) Thursday, April 7, was titled “Curtain rises again on Edwardsville’s Wildey Theatre.” Its subject was the grand reopening of a theater building after a renovation and remodel that also inspired others in the downtown area to follow suit.
A new global study released in March revealed that women currently hold 27 percent of top management jobs and 26 percent of governing jobs in the news media.
"The Global Report on the Status of Women in the News Media"
The report is a 396-page PDF document available in full online. It provides breakdowns from seven geographical regions as well as findings from individual nations.
This first-time study was conducted over a two-year period with an aim to provide detailed data on gender positions in new organizations worldwide.
The study looked at information on occupational standings, salaries, terms of employment and a variety of other issues that affect gender status. The study looked only at traditional media including newspapers, television and radio stations, with newspapers making up almost half of the sample.
The study’s key finding was that 73 percent of the top management jobs were occupied by men, compared to women at 27 percent. Twenty out of 59 nations studied had identifiable “glass ceilings” for women in middle and upper management.
The report points out in the executive summary that a 1995 study by Margaret Gallagher showed women in only 12 percent of the management positions in 239 nations.
In positions that actually produce the news, the study found that women hold 36 percent of reporter jobs, or positions at the “junior professional level.” Interestingly the senior professional level, which includes anchors, senior writers and producers, has more parity with women in 41 percent of positions.
Those findings match other studies that have looked simply at bylines. “Who Makes the News? Global Media Monitoring Project 2010” also found similar results when it looked at authorship of articles culled on a given day in 2009. Overall, 37 percent of stories in the whole sample were reported by women.
A closer look at the United States
In the summary of the findings from the United States, the report shows that across the news media women make up 41 percent of the total work force. The study included 14 U.S. news companies, 10 of which were newspapers. They in total employed approximately 3,000 people.
In the U.S. portion of the study, women made up 23.3 percent of those in top-level management and 35.3 percent of those in governance. The study shows women at near parity with men at the junior professional level, or reporter positions, at 47.2 percent but not as close at the senior professional level at 35.7 percent.
It also identified a “glass ceiling” for women in U.S. newsrooms once they reach the senior management level. After that their presence drops from 41.5 percent to the 23.3 percent at the top-level management.
Coverage in the news
A number of news and industry sources picked up on the survey and reported and commented on it. Here are a few:
The Gender Report 