Women in journalism: Reading list 4/8/12

Jasmine R. LinabaryLeave a comment

The Gender Report provides a weekly round-up of links to online articles that may be of interest to our readers. The links below are to noteworthy articles on topics related to women in journalism and the media during the past week. Articles included in this feature do not necessarily reflect the views of The Gender Report or its writers. View past week’s round-ups here.

Reading List

–Are Boy Bylines Better Than Girl Bylines? (Michele Weldon at Huffington Post Media)

–National Magazine Award Nominees: A Byline Gender Count (With Links!) (Ann Friedman) – This post set off a series of commentaries on gender and the awards. Read about what followed and access a round-up of related links here.

–NYU releases list of ’100 Outstanding Journalists’ (Poynter)

–The 22 Outstanding (Women) Journalists in the Last 100 Years (The Atlantic Wire)

–ASNE chooses five women editors for leadership panel (Poynter)

–Total and minority newsroom employment declines in 2011 but loss continues to stabilize (ASNE) – The percentage of women in newsrooms did not change in 2011, staying at 36.9 percent. See our related post here.

–Life as a female foreign reporter (The Guardian)

–World Pulse Wins Award in First Intel Hackathon (World Pulse)

–Africa: Giving Girls a Voice (AllAfrica)

–Women’s group pioneering Kenya’s investigative journalism (The Hotpot)

–For women in work this is a perfect storm of inequality (Tanya Gold for The Guardian)

–Pakistani Journalist Finds Hockey and Hope in Minnesota (KSTP)

–Q&A: How Susan Brownmiller fought the media on rape in war, and won (Women Under Siege)

–A Tribute to Indonesia’s Most Senior Journalist (Jakarta Globe)

–In Liberia, journalist Mae Azango moves a nation (Committee to Protect Journalists)

We encourage readers to submit suggestions of articles to include in future editions of this feature by sending an email to genderreport[at]gmail.com. For links to articles like these throughout the week, follow @GenderReport on Twitter.

Count shows few women as National Magazine Award finalists

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The announcement of the 2012 National Magazine Award finalists drew attention this week, not for the finalists themselves but for those who were missing.

Ann Friedman pointed out that no women were listed among finalists for the American Society of Magazine Editors’ awards in the reporting, feature writing, profile writing, essays and criticism, columns and commentary categories. However, women were the majority of candidates for the public interest, personal service and fiction categories, in other words, two those three categories are “servicey” (as Friedman noted) and most of the articles that were nominated are on “women’s issues,” such as body image (including an article on getting a “mommy tuck”), relationship or sexual violence, or specific women’s health issues like breast cancer.

This provoked a number of posts and commentary. Alyssa Rosenberg at Think Progress pointed out the fact that the awards include a women’s magazine category but no men’s magazine category, meaning men’s mags are included as general interest. References were also made to VIDA’s annual byline count, which has shown male authors dominating the space in top magazines. Said VIDA’s Erin Belieu in an interview with Mother Jones, “The National Magazine Awards have sent a pretty clear message… When it comes to a career in journalism, chicks should stick to writing about chicks.”

Meanwhile, Brooke Hatfield started an #ASSME hashtag on Twitter in an effort to point out quality work by women in 2011. Here are some examples:

All of this drew a response from Sid Holt, the chief executive of ASME, who explained the selection process and called the criticisms “kind of silly,” according to Poynter. He also identified women who have been in nominated in recent years. Rosenberg reported that Holt did acknowledge that the questioned women’s magazine category has been a “subject of debate” and explained the reasoning behind it.

Read commentaries on women and the awards as well as the judging process in the articles below:

What do you think of the lack of women finalists in major award categories? Are counts like this important? What do they mean? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.

Percent of women in newsrooms unchanged in latest ASNE Newsroom Census

Jasmine R. Linabary3 Comments

Women continue to comprise 36.9 percent of those working full-time at daily U.S. newspapers, according to the American Society of News Editors‘ 2012 Newsroom Census. That percentage remains unchanged from 2011’s survey.

ASNE Newsroom Census 2012

This year ASNE collaborated with the Center for Advanced Social Research at the Missouri School of Journalism for its annual survey effort. ASNE, which has conducted the census since 1978, unveiled this year’s findings at its convention this week in Washington, D.C. The employment survey showed declines in total newsroom employment as well as in positions held by minorities.

Though the organization’s press release on the Newsroom Census focused on these issues, the accompanying tables depict the current gender breakdown in newsrooms. The Newsroom Census tables, which include data from 1999 to the present, show that the percentage of women in newsrooms has not changed more than roughly a percentage point in that time frame. The high was 37.7 percent in 2006 and the low occurred in 2010 at 36.6 percent. The current percentage of women in newsrooms — 36.9 percent — is the same as it was in 1999, 2003 and 2011. In the current survey, the number of women working full-time at daily newspapers was 14,971, while 25,595 employees were men.

Additionally, survey results are broken down by gender and race. Based on these charts, about 15.3 percent of female staff members in the survey were minority women. Last year, ASNE reported that minority women made up 19.3 percent of female staffers. Meanwhile, minority men were roughly 10.5 percent of male employees in the current survey. That percentage was 10.8 the year prior. This is the first year the survey has included a “multi-racial” category, which may slightly skew our understanding of changes in the breakdowns by each race (For the complete breakdown, see Table K).

A separate table tracks gender and job category. Of the four job categories identified, women had the highest representation among copy/layout editors and online producers at 42.3 percent and lowest among photographers, artists and videographers at 25.2. percent. None of the categories had more than a one percent change from the previous year. The percentage of women in three categories — supervisors, reporters and writers and photographers, artists and videographers — dropped slightly, while the percentage of female copy/layout editors and online producers rose. Two categories set records this year, with women at their highest percentage in the past 14 years for copy/layout editors and online producers but at their lowest in that same time frame among reporters and writers at 38 percent.

Find out more about the latest census using the links below to the press release as well as charts related to newsroom gender breakdowns.

Read our post on the 2011 Newsroom Census here. For more studies and resources on gender in the news media, view our “Useful Resources” page.

Gender check: 4/5/12 – 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: Chicago Tribune

On the Chicago Tribune, one of the lead articles featured on the home page as of 8:50 a.m. (PT) Thursday, April 5, was titled “Opening day for optimism and overcoming obstacles.”

Here is its breakdown:

Subject: Celebrity, arts, media, sports: Sports, events, players, facilities, training, funding (GMMP No. 49)

Word count: 993

Author: Male

Human sources (listed in order mentioned):

  1. Male, president
  2. Male, manager
  3. Male, player-development chief


Website: Chicagoist

On the Chicagoist, one of the lead articles featured on the home page as of 8:50 a.m. (PT) Thursday, April 5, was titled “Wisconsin Planned Parenthood Arson Suspect: ‘I Lit Up The Clinic’.”

Here is its breakdown:

Subject: Crime and Violence: Violent crime (GMMP No. 38)

Word count: 273

Author: Male

Human sources (listed in order mentioned):

  1. Male, suspect

Notes/analysis:The post pulls from another article discussing the incident and cites an exchange in the court mainly featuring the male suspect that also involved a judge (male) and a public defender (male).

Gender check: 4/3/12 – 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: Los Angeles Times

On LATimes.com, one of the lead articles featured on the home page as of 7:25 a.m. (PT) Tuesday, April 3, was titled “Wisconsin primary could mark general election pivot point.”

Here is its breakdown:

Subject: Politics and government: Other (GMMP No. 8)

Word count: 568

Author: Male

Human sources (listed in order mentioned):

  1. Male, U.S. president
  2. Male, GOP presidential candidate
  3. Male, U.S. VP
  4. Male, GOP presidential candidate


Website: California Watch

On California Watch, one of the lead articles featured on the home page as of 7:25 a.m. (PT) Tuesday, April 3, was titled “Free military surplus gear a boon to local Calif. law enforcement.”

Here is its breakdown:

Subject: Politics and government: National defense, military spending, internal security (GMMP No. 7)

Word count: 1,588

Author:  Male (2)

Human sources (listed in order mentioned):

  1. Male, Sgt.
  2. Male, police chief
  3. Male, a former top state homeland security official and current adjunct professor
  4. Female, of the Defense Logistics Agency
  5. Male, police Lt.
  6. Male, spokesman
  7. Male, police spokesman and Lt.
  8. Male, spokesman (unnamed)
  9. Male, Sgt.