Author: Jasmine R. Linabary

Gender check: 1/27/11 – 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 2:30 p.m. (MST) Thursday, Jan. 27, was titled “No federal disaster aid for Missouri tornado victims.” Its subject was about a decision that victims of storms around New Year’s would not be receiving federal disaster aid.

Here is its gender breakdown:

–Author: Female

–Human sources  (listed in order mentioned):

1. Male, FEMA spokesman

2. Male, mayor

3. Male, governor (paraphrased)

4. Male, PIO for related agency (paraphrased)

Notes/analysis: All of the sources in the article were male. No comments were yet included from the actual victims of the storm.


Website: St. Louis Beacon

On the St. Louis Beacon, one of the lead articles featured on the home page as of 2:15 p.m. (MST) Thursday, Jan. 27, was titled “Educators welcome Obama’s emphasis on schools.” Its subject was local education officials’ responses and opinions on President Barack Obama’s comments about education in Tuesday’s State of the Union address.

Here is its gender breakdown:

–Author: Male

–Human sources  (listed in order mentioned):

1. Male, U.S. president

2. Female, president of Missouri NEA

3. Male, dean of education at university

4. Male, executive director of charter school group

5. Female, state education commissioner

Notes/analysis: The article includes a balanced gender mix of state sources in education. The article also includes two mug shots — one of a female and one of a male source.

Gender check: 1/25/11 – 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 1 p.m. (MST) Tuesday, Jan. 25, was titled “$10 million settlement for family of man shoved into wall by King Co. deputy.” Its subject was crime and courts, related to a settlement reached in a high-profile case.

Here is its gender breakdown:

–Author: Female

–Human sources  (listed in order mentioned):

1. Male, attorney

2. Male, prosecutor (opinions are paraphrased, not directly quoted)

3. Female, sheriff

4. Female, victim’s wife

Notes/analysis: See below.


Website: Seattle P-I

On the Seattle P-I, one of the lead articles featured on the home page as of 1 p.m. (MST) Tuesday, Jan. 25, was titled “King County settles Cinerama excessive force lawsuit.” Its subject was the same as that of the Seattle Times article.

Here is its gender breakdown:

–Author: Male

–Human sources  (listed in order mentioned):

1. Female, victim’s wife

2. Female, sheriff

3. Male, attorney

Notes/analysis: Both news sites had coverage of the same issue as their lead story today — the conclusion, with a settlement, of a case that involved a male deputy shoving a man into a wall and causing him severe brain injuries. The authors both included for the most part the same sources, but reversed the gender order in which they were referenced. The Seattle P-I article put more emphasis on the victim’s wife’s statement by including lengthier direct quotes and placing them at the beginning of the story.

Gender check: 1/20/11 – 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 the Stltoday.com, one of the lead articles featured on the home page as of 2 p.m. (MST) Thursday, Jan. 20, was titled “Kids on sleds, people pushing cars common sights around the city.” Its subject was weather and the effects of the latest winter storm.

Here is its gender breakdown:

–Author: Two males, plus two male contributors

–Human sources  (listed in order mentioned):

1. Female, spokeswoman for department of transportation

2. Female, district maintenance engineer

3. Male, highway patrol

4. Male, airport spokesman

Notes/analysis: Attached to the article are 14 photos, all but three with human subjects. Only two of the subjects pictured were female and 14 were male. A few of the male subjects were repeated in several photos.  Two subjects’ genders could not be determined.


Website: St. Louis Beacon

On the St. Louis Beacon, one of the lead articles featured on the home page as of 2 p.m. (MST) Thursday, Jan. 20, was titled “In State of the State, Nixon sounds optimistic note in tough economic times.” Its subject was politics and the Missouri governor’s address to the state’s legislature.

Here is its gender breakdown:

–Author: Male

–Human sources  (listed in order mentioned):

1. Male, governor (D)

2. Male, political science professor

3. Male, lieutenant governor (R)

4. Male, Senate majority leader (R)

5. Male, House speaker (R)

6. Male, state senator (D)

Notes/analysis: All the sources in this article are male, but so are the majority of those in leadership in the Missouri Legislature. In the state’s House of Representatives, there are 23 women and 34 men. Eight of the 34 members of the state’s Senate are female.

Gender check: 01/18/11 – 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 noon (MST) Tuesday, Jan. 18, was titled “Picasso leaves his mark on SAM.” Its subject was fine arts.

Here is its gender breakdown:

–Author: Female

–Human sources (listed in order mentioned):

1. Male, museum frequenter, manager of cafe across the street
2. Male, museum director
3. Female, spokeswoman for hotel/restaurant (not named)
4. Female, clothing store employee four blocks away from museum

Notes/analysis: Article includes photo of a mixed-gender crowd at the museum exhibit of a well-known male artist.

Website: Seattle P-I

On the Seattle P-I, one of the lead articles featured on the home page as of noon (MST) Tuesday, Jan. 18, was titled “Trial to begin after man critically injured by sheriff’s deputies.” Its subject was crime and courts.

Here is its gender breakdown:

–Author: Male

–Human sources (listed in order mentioned):

1. Male, attorney
2. Female, wife of victim
3. Male, senior deputy prosecutor

Notes/analysis: Alleged victim featured in the article is male, as are alleged deputies involved. Judge referenced at the end is female.

What are ‘Gender Checks’?

Jasmine R. LinabaryLeave a comment

Starting today, the monitors here at The Gender Report will be conducting and sharing weekly Gender Checks for selected news websites across the United States.

So, what exactly is a “Gender Check”? It’s our version of a “check up” to quickly examine the gender representation in a lead article on a news website at a given time. These checks aren’t meant to be considered on their own, but we hope that overtime as we collect them we’ll be able to deduce some trends. Because of this, we urge our readers not to jump to conclusions based on an individual Gender Check.

In a Gender Check, we visit a website and select one of the current lead articles, based on prominence and position on the site’s home page. The information we gather includes the subject of the article, the gender of its author, and the gender, positions and order of its sources. We may also include notes or additional analysis as applicable.

We’ve picked two news websites with generally the same coverage area — one tied to an existing newspaper and another that’s online only* — from each of the four U.S. Census regions. We arrived at this number because eight sites to check regularly felt manageable to the two of us on top of our full-times jobs.

There are hundreds of other online news sites, so we hope our readers review any findings with the understanding that they are only snapshots of a few sites and further research would be needed to verify their validity across the board.

To get started, we’ve dedicated a day each week to one of the different geographic regions  — West, Midwest, South and Northeast — and the Gender Checks from its sites.

Stay tuned tonight for our first of many.

Update 1: We completed a full year of this project in January 2012. See the findings from the first year along with findings from our other studies here. Starting in February, we continued this project but began monitoring new sites in each geographic region. Read about this and other changes here.

Update 2: As of June 14, 2012, we opted to conclude the Gender Check study to make way for new projects. Review all past posts and findings from this study here.

—

*We realize that the Seattle P-I was once connected with a newspaper. However, now it’s online only and, for our purposes, we are considering it as such in our study. We’re interested to see if its transition has resulted in any differences between it and its peers that are still associated with an ongoing print product.