As we well know, and as the recent Status of Women in the U.S. Media report from the Women’s Media Center illustrates, women have long been underrepresented and misrepresented in traditional media and entertainment.
Yet, little is still known about how that translates digitally. Continue reading
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
–The sixth W: Who, what, when, where, why—and women. A bow to those who helped close the media gender gap, and a cheer for leaders of the future (Columbia Journalism Review) – This is a cover story package on women and journalism that included a cover image paying homage to a 1970 Newsweek cover. See related stories including those about 20 women to watch, 40 women who changed the media business, and the reporting of Katherine Boo.
–Who Narrate the World? The OpEd Project 2012 Byline Report (full) (The OpEd Project)
–Gender Gap Update (4th Estate)
–Leaving Abuse Behind (New York Times Lens Blog)
–Women Win Facebook, Twitter, Zynga; Men Get LinkedIn, Reddit [INFOGRAPHIC] (Mashable)
–End the assault on female and local journalists (David Rhode on Reuters)
–Knight News Innovation Laboratory Names (Miranda Mulligan) Executive Director (Editor & Publisher)
–CPJ concerned about arrest of Mexican journalist (Committee to Protect Journalists)
–Blogger harassed, briefly detained by police in Vietnam (Committee to Protect Journalists)
–The Late Marie Colvin: “I Feel Like I Am the Last Reporter in the YouTube World” (Vanity Fair)
–Washington Post’s Amanda Zamora joins ProPublica (JimRomenesko.com)
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.
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.
–It’s 2012 already: why is opinion writing still mostly male? (Columbia Journalism Review) Regarding The OpEd Project’s latest byline survey. See our related post for a round-up of coverage.
–Men Rule Media Coverage of Women’s News (The Daily Beast) (Disclosure: The Gender Report’s co-founders are quoted)
–Why Women Can’t Get Away From “Soft” News (BuzzFeed)
–Former public editor Okrent would like to see New York Times hire female ombud (Poynter)
–Why are there so few female national newspaper editors? (Guardian)
–Women use radio to fight sexual violence (Guardian)
–#GEN2012: Three ideas for getting more women in journalism management (Journalism.co.uk)
–Afghan Broadcaster Defies Expectations of Women (IWPR)
–Vogue Fails Miserably at Capturing the Athleticism of Olympic Athletes (Jezebel)
–I Don’t Want To Be The “Nanny” At Work (BuzzFeed)
–Can the Inquirer Survive on Aging Testosterone? (The Philly Post)
–Promising writer, Yale grad Marina Keegan dies in weekend car accident (Poynter)
–Beyond the Bucket List: Journalist Susan Spencer-Wendel’s Journey (Wall Street Journal)
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.
Men still dominate opinion writing across legacy and new media, according to a report released this week from The OpEd Project.
The OpEd Project, whose mission is to increase the diversity of voices in public debate, released a byline survey of opinion articles from a 12-week period in 2011. The survey included 7,000 articles at 10 media outlets, including legacy (Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post), new (Huffington Post and Salon) and college (Columbia, Harvard, Princeton, and Yale) media.
Not surprising, college media had the highest number of female bylines out of the three groups at 38 percent. However, one would expect that number to be even higher considering women have been the majority of journalism students for decades.
Women also had more op-ed bylines in new media (33 percent) than legacy media (20 percent). This is particularly interesting because our study as well as the Global Media Monitoring Project found slightly fewer female bylines at online news sites than traditional media. In the 2010 Global Media Monitoring Project, only a small difference was found as overall 37 percent of stories were reported by women while 36 percent of stories in the online samples were bylined by women. Also, our 2011 Gender Check study (though admittedly with a much smaller sample size) found women had 33.9 percent of bylines at newspaper websites and 30.5 percent at online-only news websites. This definitely demonstrates there is need for further study and comparison, which is part of The Gender Report’s mission. The OpEd Project did note that there have been some improvements in the number of female bylines from 6 years ago.
Also noteworthy, The OpEd Project examined the subjects of the op-ed pieces by women. Women wrote the most in both legacy and new media about what the report dubbed “Pink Topics.” These were considered topics that have traditionally been considered the female “ghetto” in journalism including the “four F’s” (food, family, furniture and fashion). It also included articles on women-focused subject matter (for instance “woman-specific health or culture”), gender/women’s issues, and profiles of women for which gender is a “significant” issue.
Response and Reaction
Several blogs and organizations picked up on the report including Poynter and the Huffington Post. Often shared was Erika Fry’s piece from the Columbia Journalism Review, which puts the numbers in context and examines some of the related issues.
J. Bryan Lowder at the XX Factor questioned what was categorized as “Pink Topics,” suggesting it can perpetuate stereotypes by making it unclear what distinguishes between “women specific health and culture” and “serious” political topics.
Following the release, Poynter held a live chat on how to crack journalism’s glass ceiling. In addition to Mallary Tenore and Joe Grimm from Poynter, the chat featured Barbara Selvin, an assistant professor at Stony Brook University’s School of Journalism, who has recently written blog posts about the lack of women in journalism.
Additionally, stories noted that a panel was held Tuesday titled Throw Like A Girl: Pitching the Hell Out of Your Stories, put together by Her Girl Friday. This panel, according to Jillian Keenan at Poynter, encouraged women to gain confidence and overcome their fear of rejection. However, Jen Doll at The Atlantic Wire cautioned attributing the lack of female bylines to an issue of confidence, saying it continues to put the blame on women and is perhaps oversimplifying the issue.
This survey and others like it continue to raise awareness about the gender gap in journalism, but as Doll notes, “knowing these stats is only half the battle.”
Related reads:
–The Byline Survey Report, 2011: Who Narrates the World? (OpEd Project)
–It’s 2012 already: why is opinion writing still mostly male? (Columbia Journalism Review)
–Study: More women writing op-eds, but female bylines still cluster around ‘pink topics’ (Poynter)
–The Problem with “Pink Topics” (XX Factor)
–Men Still Dominating Bylines In Journalism: Report (Huffington Post)
–How to pitch (stories) like a girl (Poynter)
–Do Female Journalists Have a Confidence Problem? (The Atlantic Wire)
–How can we help crack journalism’s glass ceiling? (Poynter)
–New study: “major improvements” in women’s op-ed representation, but more remains to be done (Feministing)
–More Women are Writing Op-Eds, but They’re – Sigh – ‘Pink’ (Jezebel)
For more information on gender representations in online news, check out our “Findings and Statistics” and “Useful Resources” pages.
