Hi gals and guys here is another long one I'd like you to read. It is from AlterNet which is a Journalism newsletter and very good you should check it out at AlterNet.com
The Gendered Newsroom
By Michele Weldon, Women's eNews
April 21, 2004
Ambition defies the boundaries of gender. Opportunity is less democratic.
For women working in daily newspapers across the country, the crawl toward the goal post of equity continues. The numbers of women on the staffs of daily newspapers in 2003 increased minutely to 37.23 percent of newsroom employees, according to the annual ASNE Newsroom Employment Census released Tuesday by the American Society of Newspaper Editors.
The meager improvement from 37.05 percent after a two-year decline in numbers of women in newsrooms forces us to decode the writing on the wall and choose the appropriate cliche: Is it "slow and steady wins the race?" Or "quit while you still can?"
Cassandra West, editor of WomanNews, a Wednesday section at the Chicago Tribune, said the study shows the profession is a long way from fair representation of 51 percent women in newsrooms.
"I'm not hopeful that we'll ever have those kinds of numbers, but the need to have more women analyzing, reporting and shaping news coverage is as important as the need to have more women in government, medicine, law and all other professions," West said.
Guys Still Corner Upper Management
According to the latest ASNE survey of 927 U.S. daily newspapers, men continue to dominate corner offices of upper management. Only 34.2 percent of supervisors are women, the study showed. With 65.8 percent male supervisors, men outnumber women supervisors almost 2 to 1. How can that not affect decisions made about what stories to cover and how?
The position of copy/layout editor is more gender-balanced with 41.4 percent of those jobs held by women, a minuscule gain from 41 percent female copy editors the year before. Twenty-two percent of women working in newsrooms are on the copy desk, which has been true for the past three years. Eighteen percent of men working in newsrooms are on the copy desk, unchanged for the past five years.
Though more women work as reporters than at any other position (with 49 percent of female newsroom employees working as reporters), there are still fewer female than male reporters. Only 39.6 percent of reporters are women, a blip of an increase from 39.5 percent female reporters in newsrooms, according to the report on 2003.
The photo department appears to be the least accommodating to women. Photos appearing in newspapers are almost three times more likely to be shot by a male photographer. Only 26.1 percent of the photographers in newsrooms in 2003 were women, another marginal increase from 25.9 percent the previous year. Only 7 percent of women working in newspapers are employed as photographers.
Considering this paucity, it is particularly sweet that two female photographers won Pulitzer Prizes this year; Cheryl Diaz Meyer at The Dallas Morning News for breaking news photography and Carolyn Cole at the Los Angeles Times for feature photography.
The annual ASNE newsroom census, established in 1978, has marked the climb in minority employment of African Americans, Hispanics, Asians and Native Americans over the past 25 years. The census only began to include the breakdown of women working in newsrooms in 1999. In the industry's admirable and necessary aim to achieve diversity, the inclusion of women is seen as an afterthought, 21 years late.
"Women have a world view, a personal view and what I believe is a much-needed human view of how we live and how everything is connected. So having as many women at the table in all areas of journalism is essential," West said.
But for women in journalism something goes awry between studying for journalism and working in it. Women represent more than 70 percent of students in journalism schools or at universities with journalism or communication programs. In the newsroom, however, that percentage has been cut in half.
"There's something broken with the system if almost two-thirds of the people who are studying journalism are female and less than half of the journalists working in newsrooms are women" said David Nelson, associate professor and chair of the newspaper department at the Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University.
I grew up with the fictional role models of newspaper reporters Brenda Starr and Lois Lane. But when I noticed that most bylines belonged to men, I saw journalism as male-dominated. Even the designation of "soft" and "hard" news appeared to divide coverage into female and male camps.
Beyond this most recent report, several studies have pointed to the woeful representation of women in newsrooms in positions from entry level to management. A 2002 survey conducted for the American Press Institute and The Pew Center For Civic Journalism showed that 64 percent of all women said they saw their opportunities for advancement blocked by sexism. It also found that only 31 percent of the women surveyed said they will likely be promoted to the next logical position of their newspaper, compared to 42 percent of the men.
Does this imbalance of gender affect what shows up in the newspaper and who gets quoted on what kinds of stories? We can only draw that conclusion. The Readership Institute at Northwestern University's Media Management Center showed that in 3,500 front-page stories, male sources outnumbered female sources 3 to 1. Women are more likely to be quoted on stories about health, home, food, fashion, travel and education. Men, however, are most likely to be quoted on stories about politics, business, religion and science.
The goal is not to add more women to the cubicles because it is fair.
Today we can look to major newspapers across the country and see strong, talented women at the helm: Ann Marie Lipinski at the Chicago Tribune; Sandra Mims Rowe at The Oregonian, Julia Wallace at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Deborah Howell at Newhouse News Service, Amanda Bennett at the Philadelphia Enquirer, to name some. In hundreds of newspapers, we see female bylines from datelines across the globe in all sections of the paper.
Their courageous and hard-earned ascent is not just politically correct, it is critical to achieve balanced, fair and inclusive coverage of a complex, changing society. As reporters, photographers, layout designers, editors and managers of news outlets, women add a different tempo to the chorus of voices, a different vision. It took Gail Collins to bring mammograms to the editorial page of The New York Times.
Women have needs for information on issues from public policy to private healthcare that differ from those of male readers. To respond, we need to race toward parity in employing and promoting women at our country's newspapers so ambition can meet opportunity half way.
Michele Weldon is an assistant Professor at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism and is second vice president of Journalism and Women Symposium. She is the author of the memoir, "I Closed My Eyes: Revelations of a Battered Woman," and "Writing to Save Your Life: How to Honor Your Story Through Journaling," both from Hazelden Publishing.
Saturday, April 24, 2004
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The Gendered Newsroom
By Michele Weldon, Women's eNews
April 21, 2004
Ambition defies the boundaries of gender. Opportunity is less democratic.
For women working in daily newspapers across the country, the crawl toward the goal post of equity continues. The numbers of women on the staffs of daily newspapers in 2003 increased minutely to 37.23 percent of newsroom employees, according to the annual ASNE Newsroom Employment Census released Tuesday by the American Society of Newspaper Editors.
The meager improvement from 37.05 percent after a two-year decline in numbers of women in newsrooms forces us to decode the writing on the wall and choose the appropriate cliche: Is it "slow and steady wins the race?" Or "quit while you still can?"
Cassandra West, editor of WomanNews, a Wednesday section at the Chicago Tribune, said the study shows the profession is a long way from fair representation of 51 percent women in newsrooms.
"I'm not hopeful that we'll ever have those kinds of numbers, but the need to have more women analyzing, reporting and shaping news coverage is as important as the need to have more women in government, medicine, law and all other professions," West said.
Guys Still Corner Upper Management
According to the latest ASNE survey of 927 U.S. daily newspapers, men continue to dominate corner offices of upper management. Only 34.2 percent of supervisors are women, the study showed. With 65.8 percent male supervisors, men outnumber women supervisors almost 2 to 1. How can that not affect decisions made about what stories to cover and how?
The position of copy/layout editor is more gender-balanced with 41.4 percent of those jobs held by women, a minuscule gain from 41 percent female copy editors the year before. Twenty-two percent of women working in newsrooms are on the copy desk, which has been true for the past three years. Eighteen percent of men working in newsrooms are on the copy desk, unchanged for the past five years.
Though more women work as reporters than at any other position (with 49 percent of female newsroom employees working as reporters), there are still fewer female than male reporters. Only 39.6 percent of reporters are women, a blip of an increase from 39.5 percent female reporters in newsrooms, according to the report on 2003.
The photo department appears to be the least accommodating to women. Photos appearing in newspapers are almost three times more likely to be shot by a male photographer. Only 26.1 percent of the photographers in newsrooms in 2003 were women, another marginal increase from 25.9 percent the previous year. Only 7 percent of women working in newspapers are employed as photographers.
Considering this paucity, it is particularly sweet that two female photographers won Pulitzer Prizes this year; Cheryl Diaz Meyer at The Dallas Morning News for breaking news photography and Carolyn Cole at the Los Angeles Times for feature photography.
The annual ASNE newsroom census, established in 1978, has marked the climb in minority employment of African Americans, Hispanics, Asians and Native Americans over the past 25 years. The census only began to include the breakdown of women working in newsrooms in 1999. In the industry's admirable and necessary aim to achieve diversity, the inclusion of women is seen as an afterthought, 21 years late.
"Women have a world view, a personal view and what I believe is a much-needed human view of how we live and how everything is connected. So having as many women at the table in all areas of journalism is essential," West said.
But for women in journalism something goes awry between studying for journalism and working in it. Women represent more than 70 percent of students in journalism schools or at universities with journalism or communication programs. In the newsroom, however, that percentage has been cut in half.
"There's something broken with the system if almost two-thirds of the people who are studying journalism are female and less than half of the journalists working in newsrooms are women" said David Nelson, associate professor and chair of the newspaper department at the Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University.
I grew up with the fictional role models of newspaper reporters Brenda Starr and Lois Lane. But when I noticed that most bylines belonged to men, I saw journalism as male-dominated. Even the designation of "soft" and "hard" news appeared to divide coverage into female and male camps.
Beyond this most recent report, several studies have pointed to the woeful representation of women in newsrooms in positions from entry level to management. A 2002 survey conducted for the American Press Institute and The Pew Center For Civic Journalism showed that 64 percent of all women said they saw their opportunities for advancement blocked by sexism. It also found that only 31 percent of the women surveyed said they will likely be promoted to the next logical position of their newspaper, compared to 42 percent of the men.
Does this imbalance of gender affect what shows up in the newspaper and who gets quoted on what kinds of stories? We can only draw that conclusion. The Readership Institute at Northwestern University's Media Management Center showed that in 3,500 front-page stories, male sources outnumbered female sources 3 to 1. Women are more likely to be quoted on stories about health, home, food, fashion, travel and education. Men, however, are most likely to be quoted on stories about politics, business, religion and science.
The goal is not to add more women to the cubicles because it is fair.
Today we can look to major newspapers across the country and see strong, talented women at the helm: Ann Marie Lipinski at the Chicago Tribune; Sandra Mims Rowe at The Oregonian, Julia Wallace at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Deborah Howell at Newhouse News Service, Amanda Bennett at the Philadelphia Enquirer, to name some. In hundreds of newspapers, we see female bylines from datelines across the globe in all sections of the paper.
Their courageous and hard-earned ascent is not just politically correct, it is critical to achieve balanced, fair and inclusive coverage of a complex, changing society. As reporters, photographers, layout designers, editors and managers of news outlets, women add a different tempo to the chorus of voices, a different vision. It took Gail Collins to bring mammograms to the editorial page of The New York Times.
Women have needs for information on issues from public policy to private healthcare that differ from those of male readers. To respond, we need to race toward parity in employing and promoting women at our country's newspapers so ambition can meet opportunity half way.
Michele Weldon is an assistant Professor at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism and is second vice president of Journalism and Women Symposium. She is the author of the memoir, "I Closed My Eyes: Revelations of a Battered Woman," and "Writing to Save Your Life: How to Honor Your Story Through Journaling," both from Hazelden Publishing.
Election 2004
The most important election of your life.
Rights & Liberties
Human rights and civil liberties.
MediaCulture
Critical perspectives on our media-driven world
Movie Mix
Home of The Alternative Movie Awards.
War on Iraq
Coverage of America's war with Iraq.
DrugReporter
News from the front lines of the drug war.
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From climate change to medical news.
Feedback
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ÊDiscussion
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Home È ÊMediaCulture È
The Gendered Newsroom
By Michele Weldon, Women's eNews
April 21, 2004
Ambition defies the boundaries of gender. Opportunity is less democratic.
For women working in daily newspapers across the country, the crawl toward the goal post of equity continues. The numbers of women on the staffs of daily newspapers in 2003 increased minutely to 37.23 percent of newsroom employees, according to the annual ASNE Newsroom Employment Census released Tuesday by the American Society of Newspaper Editors.
The meager improvement from 37.05 percent after a two-year decline in numbers of women in newsrooms forces us to decode the writing on the wall and choose the appropriate cliche: Is it "slow and steady wins the race?" Or "quit while you still can?"
Cassandra West, editor of WomanNews, a Wednesday section at the Chicago Tribune, said the study shows the profession is a long way from fair representation of 51 percent women in newsrooms.
"I'm not hopeful that we'll ever have those kinds of numbers, but the need to have more women analyzing, reporting and shaping news coverage is as important as the need to have more women in government, medicine, law and all other professions," West said.
Guys Still Corner Upper Management
According to the latest ASNE survey of 927 U.S. daily newspapers, men continue to dominate corner offices of upper management. Only 34.2 percent of supervisors are women, the study showed. With 65.8 percent male supervisors, men outnumber women supervisors almost 2 to 1. How can that not affect decisions made about what stories to cover and how?
The position of copy/layout editor is more gender-balanced with 41.4 percent of those jobs held by women, a minuscule gain from 41 percent female copy editors the year before. Twenty-two percent of women working in newsrooms are on the copy desk, which has been true for the past three years. Eighteen percent of men working in newsrooms are on the copy desk, unchanged for the past five years.
Though more women work as reporters than at any other position (with 49 percent of female newsroom employees working as reporters), there are still fewer female than male reporters. Only 39.6 percent of reporters are women, a blip of an increase from 39.5 percent female reporters in newsrooms, according to the report on 2003.
The photo department appears to be the least accommodating to women. Photos appearing in newspapers are almost three times more likely to be shot by a male photographer. Only 26.1 percent of the photographers in newsrooms in 2003 were women, another marginal increase from 25.9 percent the previous year. Only 7 percent of women working in newspapers are employed as photographers.
Considering this paucity, it is particularly sweet that two female photographers won Pulitzer Prizes this year; Cheryl Diaz Meyer at The Dallas Morning News for breaking news photography and Carolyn Cole at the Los Angeles Times for feature photography.
The annual ASNE newsroom census, established in 1978, has marked the climb in minority employment of African Americans, Hispanics, Asians and Native Americans over the past 25 years. The census only began to include the breakdown of women working in newsrooms in 1999. In the industry's admirable and necessary aim to achieve diversity, the inclusion of women is seen as an afterthought, 21 years late.
"Women have a world view, a personal view and what I believe is a much-needed human view of how we live and how everything is connected. So having as many women at the table in all areas of journalism is essential," West said.
But for women in journalism something goes awry between studying for journalism and working in it. Women represent more than 70 percent of students in journalism schools or at universities with journalism or communication programs. In the newsroom, however, that percentage has been cut in half.
"There's something broken with the system if almost two-thirds of the people who are studying journalism are female and less than half of the journalists working in newsrooms are women" said David Nelson, associate professor and chair of the newspaper department at the Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University.
I grew up with the fictional role models of newspaper reporters Brenda Starr and Lois Lane. But when I noticed that most bylines belonged to men, I saw journalism as male-dominated. Even the designation of "soft" and "hard" news appeared to divide coverage into female and male camps.
Beyond this most recent report, several studies have pointed to the woeful representation of women in newsrooms in positions from entry level to management. A 2002 survey conducted for the American Press Institute and The Pew Center For Civic Journalism showed that 64 percent of all women said they saw their opportunities for advancement blocked by sexism. It also found that only 31 percent of the women surveyed said they will likely be promoted to the next logical position of their newspaper, compared to 42 percent of the men.
Does this imbalance of gender affect what shows up in the newspaper and who gets quoted on what kinds of stories? We can only draw that conclusion. The Readership Institute at Northwestern University's Media Management Center showed that in 3,500 front-page stories, male sources outnumbered female sources 3 to 1. Women are more likely to be quoted on stories about health, home, food, fashion, travel and education. Men, however, are most likely to be quoted on stories about politics, business, religion and science.
The goal is not to add more women to the cubicles because it is fair.
Today we can look to major newspapers across the country and see strong, talented women at the helm: Ann Marie Lipinski at the Chicago Tribune; Sandra Mims Rowe at The Oregonian, Julia Wallace at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Deborah Howell at Newhouse News Service, Amanda Bennett at the Philadelphia Enquirer, to name some. In hundreds of newspapers, we see female bylines from datelines across the globe in all sections of the paper.
Their courageous and hard-earned ascent is not just politically correct, it is critical to achieve balanced, fair and inclusive coverage of a complex, changing society. As reporters, photographers, layout designers, editors and managers of news outlets, women add a different tempo to the chorus of voices, a different vision. It took Gail Collins to bring mammograms to the editorial page of The New York Times.
Women have needs for information on issues from public policy to private healthcare that differ from those of male readers. To respond, we need to race toward parity in employing and promoting women at our country's newspapers so ambition can meet opportunity half way.
Michele Weldon is an assistant Professor at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism and is second vice president of Journalism and Women Symposium. She is the author of the memoir, "I Closed My Eyes: Revelations of a Battered Woman," and "Writing to Save Your Life: How to Honor Your Story Through Journaling," both from Hazelden Publishing.
Content Files
Election 2004
The most important election of your life.
Rights & Liberties
Human rights and civil liberties.
MediaCulture
Critical perspectives on our media-driven world
Movie Mix
Home of The Alternative Movie Awards.
War on Iraq
Coverage of America's war with Iraq.
DrugReporter
News from the front lines of the drug war.
EnviroHealth
From climate change to medical news.
Feedback
Tell us how we're doing.
Discussion
Visit AlterNet's forums for lively discussions on today's news.
Guests »
Members »
Home » MediaCulture »
The Gendered Newsroom
By Michele Weldon, Women's eNews
April 21, 2004
Ambition defies the boundaries of gender. Opportunity is less democratic.
For women working in daily newspapers across the country, the crawl toward the goal post of equity continues. The numbers of women on the staffs of daily newspapers in 2003 increased minutely to 37.23 percent of newsroom employees, according to the annual ASNE Newsroom Employment Census released Tuesday by the American Society of Newspaper Editors.
The meager improvement from 37.05 percent after a two-year decline in numbers of women in newsrooms forces us to decode the writing on the wall and choose the appropriate cliche: Is it "slow and steady wins the race?" Or "quit while you still can?"
Cassandra West, editor of WomanNews, a Wednesday section at the Chicago Tribune, said the study shows the profession is a long way from fair representation of 51 percent women in newsrooms.
"I'm not hopeful that we'll ever have those kinds of numbers, but the need to have more women analyzing, reporting and shaping news coverage is as important as the need to have more women in government, medicine, law and all other professions," West said.
Guys Still Corner Upper Management
According to the latest ASNE survey of 927 U.S. daily newspapers, men continue to dominate corner offices of upper management. Only 34.2 percent of supervisors are women, the study showed. With 65.8 percent male supervisors, men outnumber women supervisors almost 2 to 1. How can that not affect decisions made about what stories to cover and how?
The position of copy/layout editor is more gender-balanced with 41.4 percent of those jobs held by women, a minuscule gain from 41 percent female copy editors the year before. Twenty-two percent of women working in newsrooms are on the copy desk, which has been true for the past three years. Eighteen percent of men working in newsrooms are on the copy desk, unchanged for the past five years.
Though more women work as reporters than at any other position (with 49 percent of female newsroom employees working as reporters), there are still fewer female than male reporters. Only 39.6 percent of reporters are women, a blip of an increase from 39.5 percent female reporters in newsrooms, according to the report on 2003.
The photo department appears to be the least accommodating to women. Photos appearing in newspapers are almost three times more likely to be shot by a male photographer. Only 26.1 percent of the photographers in newsrooms in 2003 were women, another marginal increase from 25.9 percent the previous year. Only 7 percent of women working in newspapers are employed as photographers.
Considering this paucity, it is particularly sweet that two female photographers won Pulitzer Prizes this year; Cheryl Diaz Meyer at The Dallas Morning News for breaking news photography and Carolyn Cole at the Los Angeles Times for feature photography.
The annual ASNE newsroom census, established in 1978, has marked the climb in minority employment of African Americans, Hispanics, Asians and Native Americans over the past 25 years. The census only began to include the breakdown of women working in newsrooms in 1999. In the industry's admirable and necessary aim to achieve diversity, the inclusion of women is seen as an afterthought, 21 years late.
"Women have a world view, a personal view and what I believe is a much-needed human view of how we live and how everything is connected. So having as many women at the table in all areas of journalism is essential," West said.
But for women in journalism something goes awry between studying for journalism and working in it. Women represent more than 70 percent of students in journalism schools or at universities with journalism or communication programs. In the newsroom, however, that percentage has been cut in half.
"There's something broken with the system if almost two-thirds of the people who are studying journalism are female and less than half of the journalists working in newsrooms are women" said David Nelson, associate professor and chair of the newspaper department at the Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University.
I grew up with the fictional role models of newspaper reporters Brenda Starr and Lois Lane. But when I noticed that most bylines belonged to men, I saw journalism as male-dominated. Even the designation of "soft" and "hard" news appeared to divide coverage into female and male camps.
Beyond this most recent report, several studies have pointed to the woeful representation of women in newsrooms in positions from entry level to management. A 2002 survey conducted for the American Press Institute and The Pew Center For Civic Journalism showed that 64 percent of all women said they saw their opportunities for advancement blocked by sexism. It also found that only 31 percent of the women surveyed said they will likely be promoted to the next logical position of their newspaper, compared to 42 percent of the men.
Does this imbalance of gender affect what shows up in the newspaper and who gets quoted on what kinds of stories? We can only draw that conclusion. The Readership Institute at Northwestern University's Media Management Center showed that in 3,500 front-page stories, male sources outnumbered female sources 3 to 1. Women are more likely to be quoted on stories about health, home, food, fashion, travel and education. Men, however, are most likely to be quoted on stories about politics, business, religion and science.
The goal is not to add more women to the cubicles because it is fair.
Today we can look to major newspapers across the country and see strong, talented women at the helm: Ann Marie Lipinski at the Chicago Tribune; Sandra Mims Rowe at The Oregonian, Julia Wallace at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Deborah Howell at Newhouse News Service, Amanda Bennett at the Philadelphia Enquirer, to name some. In hundreds of newspapers, we see female bylines from datelines across the globe in all sections of the paper.
Their courageous and hard-earned ascent is not just politically correct, it is critical to achieve balanced, fair and inclusive coverage of a complex, changing society. As reporters, photographers, layout designers, editors and managers of news outlets, women add a different tempo to the chorus of voices, a different vision. It took Gail Collins to bring mammograms to the editorial page of The New York Times.
Women have needs for information on issues from public policy to private healthcare that differ from those of male readers. To respond, we need to race toward parity in employing and promoting women at our country's newspapers so ambition can meet opportunity half way.
Michele Weldon is an assistant Professor at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism and is second vice president of Journalism and Women Symposium. She is the author of the memoir, "I Closed My Eyes: Revelations of a Battered Woman," and "Writing to Save Your Life: How to Honor Your Story Through Journaling," both from Hazelden Publishing.
Election 2004
The most important election of your life.
Rights & Liberties
Human rights and civil liberties.
MediaCulture
Critical perspectives on our media-driven world
Movie Mix
Home of The Alternative Movie Awards.
War on Iraq
Coverage of America's war with Iraq.
DrugReporter
News from the front lines of the drug war.
EnviroHealth
From climate change to medical news.
Feedback
Tell us how we're doing.
Discussion
Visit AlterNet's forums for lively discussions on today's news.
Guests »
Members »
Home » MediaCulture »
The Gendered Newsroom
By Michele Weldon, Women's eNews
April 21, 2004
Ambition defies the boundaries of gender. Opportunity is less democratic.
For women working in daily newspapers across the country, the crawl toward the goal post of equity continues. The numbers of women on the staffs of daily newspapers in 2003 increased minutely to 37.23 percent of newsroom employees, according to the annual ASNE Newsroom Employment Census released Tuesday by the American Society of Newspaper Editors.
The meager improvement from 37.05 percent after a two-year decline in numbers of women in newsrooms forces us to decode the writing on the wall and choose the appropriate cliche: Is it "slow and steady wins the race?" Or "quit while you still can?"
Cassandra West, editor of WomanNews, a Wednesday section at the Chicago Tribune, said the study shows the profession is a long way from fair representation of 51 percent women in newsrooms.
"I'm not hopeful that we'll ever have those kinds of numbers, but the need to have more women analyzing, reporting and shaping news coverage is as important as the need to have more women in government, medicine, law and all other professions," West said.
Guys Still Corner Upper Management
According to the latest ASNE survey of 927 U.S. daily newspapers, men continue to dominate corner offices of upper management. Only 34.2 percent of supervisors are women, the study showed. With 65.8 percent male supervisors, men outnumber women supervisors almost 2 to 1. How can that not affect decisions made about what stories to cover and how?
The position of copy/layout editor is more gender-balanced with 41.4 percent of those jobs held by women, a minuscule gain from 41 percent female copy editors the year before. Twenty-two percent of women working in newsrooms are on the copy desk, which has been true for the past three years. Eighteen percent of men working in newsrooms are on the copy desk, unchanged for the past five years.
Though more women work as reporters than at any other position (with 49 percent of female newsroom employees working as reporters), there are still fewer female than male reporters. Only 39.6 percent of reporters are women, a blip of an increase from 39.5 percent female reporters in newsrooms, according to the report on 2003.
The photo department appears to be the least accommodating to women. Photos appearing in newspapers are almost three times more likely to be shot by a male photographer. Only 26.1 percent of the photographers in newsrooms in 2003 were women, another marginal increase from 25.9 percent the previous year. Only 7 percent of women working in newspapers are employed as photographers.
Considering this paucity, it is particularly sweet that two female photographers won Pulitzer Prizes this year; Cheryl Diaz Meyer at The Dallas Morning News for breaking news photography and Carolyn Cole at the Los Angeles Times for feature photography.
The annual ASNE newsroom census, established in 1978, has marked the climb in minority employment of African Americans, Hispanics, Asians and Native Americans over the past 25 years. The census only began to include the breakdown of women working in newsrooms in 1999. In the industry's admirable and necessary aim to achieve diversity, the inclusion of women is seen as an afterthought, 21 years late.
"Women have a world view, a personal view and what I believe is a much-needed human view of how we live and how everything is connected. So having as many women at the table in all areas of journalism is essential," West said.
But for women in journalism something goes awry between studying for journalism and working in it. Women represent more than 70 percent of students in journalism schools or at universities with journalism or communication programs. In the newsroom, however, that percentage has been cut in half.
"There's something broken with the system if almost two-thirds of the people who are studying journalism are female and less than half of the journalists working in newsrooms are women" said David Nelson, associate professor and chair of the newspaper department at the Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University.
I grew up with the fictional role models of newspaper reporters Brenda Starr and Lois Lane. But when I noticed that most bylines belonged to men, I saw journalism as male-dominated. Even the designation of "soft" and "hard" news appeared to divide coverage into female and male camps.
Beyond this most recent report, several studies have pointed to the woeful representation of women in newsrooms in positions from entry level to management. A 2002 survey conducted for the American Press Institute and The Pew Center For Civic Journalism showed that 64 percent of all women said they saw their opportunities for advancement blocked by sexism. It also found that only 31 percent of the women surveyed said they will likely be promoted to the next logical position of their newspaper, compared to 42 percent of the men.
Does this imbalance of gender affect what shows up in the newspaper and who gets quoted on what kinds of stories? We can only draw that conclusion. The Readership Institute at Northwestern University's Media Management Center showed that in 3,500 front-page stories, male sources outnumbered female sources 3 to 1. Women are more likely to be quoted on stories about health, home, food, fashion, travel and education. Men, however, are most likely to be quoted on stories about politics, business, religion and science.
The goal is not to add more women to the cubicles because it is fair.
Today we can look to major newspapers across the country and see strong, talented women at the helm: Ann Marie Lipinski at the Chicago Tribune; Sandra Mims Rowe at The Oregonian, Julia Wallace at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Deborah Howell at Newhouse News Service, Amanda Bennett at the Philadelphia Enquirer, to name some. In hundreds of newspapers, we see female bylines from datelines across the globe in all sections of the paper.
Their courageous and hard-earned ascent is not just politically correct, it is critical to achieve balanced, fair and inclusive coverage of a complex, changing society. As reporters, photographers, layout designers, editors and managers of news outlets, women add a different tempo to the chorus of voices, a different vision. It took Gail Collins to bring mammograms to the editorial page of The New York Times.
Women have needs for information on issues from public policy to private healthcare that differ from those of male readers. To respond, we need to race toward parity in employing and promoting women at our country's newspapers so ambition can meet opportunity half way.
Michele Weldon is an assistant Professor at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism and is second vice president of Journalism and Women Symposium. She is the author of the memoir, "I Closed My Eyes: Revelations of a Battered Woman," and "Writing to Save Your Life: How to Honor Your Story Through Journaling," both from Hazelden Publishing.
Monday, April 19, 2004
Who is a reporter and what does a reporter do?
If the Whole World Was Watching
By Dana Hughes, YES! Magazine
April 15, 2004
As the midmorning sun beats down and the humidity traps the fumes and exhaust from buses and cars, a group of young Salvadorans set up cameras among the people and pigeons in a public park. As they work, they attract a lot of attention from bystanders, including the police, who don't stop them, but continue to watch with suspicious eyes.
Learning how to film that suspicion is the reason the group is there. They are setting up their cameras under the leadership of Sam Gregory, the program coordinator for a group called Witness that is providing film training for Entre Amigos ("Between Friends"), an organization of gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender people in El Salvador. The group plans to document the discrimination and abuse its members suffer from authorities as part of a campaign for reforms. But before any of that can happen, they have to learn how to make videos, which is where Gregory and Witness come in. Gregory knows that effective training requires practice in public where circumstances aren't as easily controlled as they are in the backyard where the training sessions began.
Witness is a nonprofit organization that uses video and other communications technology to promote and defend human rights. Over the course of 10 years it has trained 150 partner organizations in more than 50 countries. The groups vary by cause as well as location, ranging from a South America-based group of scientists who solve human rights crimes to a U.S.-based group focusing on juvenile incarceration.
The scope of Witness's work hasn't always been so broad. It was founded in 1992 by the British musician Peter Gabriel, after an amateur photographer videotaped the beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles police officers and drew international attention to human rights abuses in the United States. If a video recorded by chance could have so powerful an effect, Gabriel thought, why not record international abuses more purposefully? He joined with the Lawyers Committee on Human Rights and theReebok Human Rights Foundation to start Witness. It began with two staff members, a budget of $150,000, and a primary concentration on providing cameras. Today Witness is an independent organization with 11 full-time staff members and eight on-site volunteers who work from a large loft in New York City's Tribeca neighborhood, and camera training is only part of their work.
In 1996 Witness helped its partners at the Global Survival Network produce "Bought and Sold," a documentary based on an undercover investigation of the Russian mafia's involvement in trafficking of women from the former Soviet Union. Footage from the film was picked up by ABC News, BBC and CNN and was the subject of a front-page story in The New York Times.
The media attention produced results: President Clinton issued an executive order allocating $10 million to fight violence against women, with special emphasis on trafficking. The issue received more attention after Madeleine Albright put it on the agenda in her meetings with heads of state, and in 2000 the United Nations passed a transnational protocol to prevent trafficking. That year, the U.S. Congress also passed the Trafficking Victims Protections Act.
Following the success of the "Bought and Sold" campaign, Witness hired Gillian Caldwell, who had participated in the trafficking investigation as co-director of Global Survival Network, to be its first executive director. Under Caldwell's watch, Witness installed a full-time production and editing facility on site and the number of its in-house productions increased from three to 30 in two years.
She also led the group to make greater use of the Internet. Besides explaining the work of the organization and its partners, the Witness website (www.Witness.org) features "Rights Alert," webcasts that highlight footage from partner organizations with accompanying narratives and suggestions for action.
"We were one of the first nonprofit organizations with sophisticated Web broadcasting on the Net," Caldwell says. "It was getting about a hundred hits a month in 1998. We get over 1.5 million hits a month now."
As it has grown, Witness has won the attention of media celebrities and government officials. Actors Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins serve on the board of directors, and films are narrated by performers such as Q-Tip, a rap artist. As the group's visibility has increased, the number of Witness partners has increased by more than 40 in the past four years, and the applications continue to come in. The group has expanded its focus from civil rights to include social, economic, and cultural rights as well.
Witness is also beginning to train some of its long-term partners to do video and editing training themselves. Joey Lozano, a freelance journalist from the Philippines, first became interested in the role of the media when he noticed the lack of reporting on human rights abuses during the Marcos dictatorship. Working with Witness, Lozano began training groups in rural areas in basic journalism and broadcasting. One group was Nakamata, a coalition of 10 indigenous peoples organizations working to secure land rights on the island of Mindanao. After three indigenous leaders were murdered in 2001, Lozano and Nakamata documented the crime in a video that Witness broadcast on its website. A Philippines investigative news program also aired the footage. Because of the local and international attention, the National Bureau of Investigation conducted an inquiry that led to the indictment of three people for murder. A film featuring Lozano and Nakamata recently won the Abraham Award at the Hamptons International Film Festival.
Sandrine Isambert, a former video editor for Witness, also helped train partners. "Once partners see the process of editing, they understand shooting and scripting better," she says. Isambert worked closely with the Equipo Argentino de Antropologia Forense (Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team), one of the world's premier groups of scientists involved in human rights work. The team combines clues from interviews, exhumation of human remains, and laboratory analyses to solve crimes, identify victims, and return their remains to their families. Testifying before courts and international tribunals, E.A.A.F. has been instrumental in bringing to justice government officials from places like Argentina and Haiti for abuses committed during the 1980s and 90s. Witness helped the group produce and distribute a video, "When Bones Talk," explaining its work in layman's terms for representatives of governments and nongovernmental organizations.
Gregory, who has a background in both commercial film production and human rights activism and is fluent in Spanish, is the primary contact and instructor for Witness's Latin American partners.
In 2002, Gregory conducted a monthlong training program in Central America. He spent two weeks in villages on the northern coast of Honduras working with the Comite de Emergencia Garifuna de Honduras (Garifuna Emergency Committee of Honduras). An indigenous group working on sustainable development, the Comite has faced arson and death threats from wealthy developers in local communities. Gregory helped the group film and edit footage of abuses committed recently in various Garifuna villages. He also spent time in Guatemala, working with Jesus Tecu Osorio, a survivor of Guatemala's civil war, who has been documenting the effects of the war on its victims and survivors. And Gregory conducted the training in El Salvador for Entre Amigos, a new Witness partner.
Because the clientele of Entre Amigos is primarily working class and poorly educated, the first challenge the group faces with new members is to help them understand their rights. Another challenge facing Entre Amigos is getting the government to enforce these rights. In El Salvador 75,000 people disappeared or were killed during a 12-year civil war that ended only 10 years ago. Although a democratic system has been in place since 1994, effects of the war linger – there is an extremely high poverty and crime rate and such a proliferation of guns that supermarkets post signs asking customers to check their weapons before shopping. Since El Salvador is still in the process of establishing basic rule of law and civil rights, addressing discrimination based on sexual orientation is not a priority.
At the initial training session last July, even before the cameras were brought in, Gregory encouraged the group to clarify its goals for the use of video.
In El Salvador, ordinances originally designed to fine lewd behavior in public are turning into excuses for illegal detainment and harassment of gays and transsexuals openly displaying affection. Abuses are common in the prison system, with guards harassing homosexual and transgender inmates and placing them with others who are openly homophobic. So Gregory discussed different ways to record and document such abuses.
The second day focused on technical camera training. Gregory explained that Entre Amigos would be using digital hand-held cameras and passed two of them around the group. Then he showed a video on how to use the cameras, stopping the tape to demonstrate each time it introduced a new topic. He made sure everyone in the room handled a camera and tried the techniques.
The group then moved outside to practice in the backyard, where they immediately faced lighting and sound challenges. Next they practiced filming in public, staging an interview with one of the Entre Amigos members, who pointed out where last year's gay pride parade took place.
The last day of the training focused on editing. Like a television cook who prepares different parts of a meal in advance, Gregory worked at night on his computer, logging and editing footage shot that day so that the group could see the various stages of the process. Almost all of the Entre Amigos participants see the process of editing as the link to everything they learned. With an understanding of editing, members of the group say, they see how future footage can be tailored to fit their goals and advance their cause.
William Hernandez, the director of Entre Amigos, remarks that what the group has learned during the week will permanently change the nature of its work. Joaquin Caceres, Entre Amigos' director of educational programming, agrees, emphasizing that Gregory has provided more than just camera training; he has given the group a strategy. "It's a tool we will utilize as much as possible to help spur people into action."
This article originally appeared in the Ford Foundation Report, Winter 2003. Dana Hughes is a staff writer for FFR.
If the Whole World Was Watching
By Dana Hughes, YES! Magazine
April 15, 2004
As the midmorning sun beats down and the humidity traps the fumes and exhaust from buses and cars, a group of young Salvadorans set up cameras among the people and pigeons in a public park. As they work, they attract a lot of attention from bystanders, including the police, who don't stop them, but continue to watch with suspicious eyes.
Learning how to film that suspicion is the reason the group is there. They are setting up their cameras under the leadership of Sam Gregory, the program coordinator for a group called Witness that is providing film training for Entre Amigos ("Between Friends"), an organization of gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender people in El Salvador. The group plans to document the discrimination and abuse its members suffer from authorities as part of a campaign for reforms. But before any of that can happen, they have to learn how to make videos, which is where Gregory and Witness come in. Gregory knows that effective training requires practice in public where circumstances aren't as easily controlled as they are in the backyard where the training sessions began.
Witness is a nonprofit organization that uses video and other communications technology to promote and defend human rights. Over the course of 10 years it has trained 150 partner organizations in more than 50 countries. The groups vary by cause as well as location, ranging from a South America-based group of scientists who solve human rights crimes to a U.S.-based group focusing on juvenile incarceration.
The scope of Witness's work hasn't always been so broad. It was founded in 1992 by the British musician Peter Gabriel, after an amateur photographer videotaped the beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles police officers and drew international attention to human rights abuses in the United States. If a video recorded by chance could have so powerful an effect, Gabriel thought, why not record international abuses more purposefully? He joined with the Lawyers Committee on Human Rights and theReebok Human Rights Foundation to start Witness. It began with two staff members, a budget of $150,000, and a primary concentration on providing cameras. Today Witness is an independent organization with 11 full-time staff members and eight on-site volunteers who work from a large loft in New York City's Tribeca neighborhood, and camera training is only part of their work.
In 1996 Witness helped its partners at the Global Survival Network produce "Bought and Sold," a documentary based on an undercover investigation of the Russian mafia's involvement in trafficking of women from the former Soviet Union. Footage from the film was picked up by ABC News, BBC and CNN and was the subject of a front-page story in The New York Times.
The media attention produced results: President Clinton issued an executive order allocating $10 million to fight violence against women, with special emphasis on trafficking. The issue received more attention after Madeleine Albright put it on the agenda in her meetings with heads of state, and in 2000 the United Nations passed a transnational protocol to prevent trafficking. That year, the U.S. Congress also passed the Trafficking Victims Protections Act.
Following the success of the "Bought and Sold" campaign, Witness hired Gillian Caldwell, who had participated in the trafficking investigation as co-director of Global Survival Network, to be its first executive director. Under Caldwell's watch, Witness installed a full-time production and editing facility on site and the number of its in-house productions increased from three to 30 in two years.
She also led the group to make greater use of the Internet. Besides explaining the work of the organization and its partners, the Witness website (www.Witness.org) features "Rights Alert," webcasts that highlight footage from partner organizations with accompanying narratives and suggestions for action.
"We were one of the first nonprofit organizations with sophisticated Web broadcasting on the Net," Caldwell says. "It was getting about a hundred hits a month in 1998. We get over 1.5 million hits a month now."
As it has grown, Witness has won the attention of media celebrities and government officials. Actors Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins serve on the board of directors, and films are narrated by performers such as Q-Tip, a rap artist. As the group's visibility has increased, the number of Witness partners has increased by more than 40 in the past four years, and the applications continue to come in. The group has expanded its focus from civil rights to include social, economic, and cultural rights as well.
Witness is also beginning to train some of its long-term partners to do video and editing training themselves. Joey Lozano, a freelance journalist from the Philippines, first became interested in the role of the media when he noticed the lack of reporting on human rights abuses during the Marcos dictatorship. Working with Witness, Lozano began training groups in rural areas in basic journalism and broadcasting. One group was Nakamata, a coalition of 10 indigenous peoples organizations working to secure land rights on the island of Mindanao. After three indigenous leaders were murdered in 2001, Lozano and Nakamata documented the crime in a video that Witness broadcast on its website. A Philippines investigative news program also aired the footage. Because of the local and international attention, the National Bureau of Investigation conducted an inquiry that led to the indictment of three people for murder. A film featuring Lozano and Nakamata recently won the Abraham Award at the Hamptons International Film Festival.
Sandrine Isambert, a former video editor for Witness, also helped train partners. "Once partners see the process of editing, they understand shooting and scripting better," she says. Isambert worked closely with the Equipo Argentino de Antropologia Forense (Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team), one of the world's premier groups of scientists involved in human rights work. The team combines clues from interviews, exhumation of human remains, and laboratory analyses to solve crimes, identify victims, and return their remains to their families. Testifying before courts and international tribunals, E.A.A.F. has been instrumental in bringing to justice government officials from places like Argentina and Haiti for abuses committed during the 1980s and 90s. Witness helped the group produce and distribute a video, "When Bones Talk," explaining its work in layman's terms for representatives of governments and nongovernmental organizations.
Gregory, who has a background in both commercial film production and human rights activism and is fluent in Spanish, is the primary contact and instructor for Witness's Latin American partners.
In 2002, Gregory conducted a monthlong training program in Central America. He spent two weeks in villages on the northern coast of Honduras working with the Comite de Emergencia Garifuna de Honduras (Garifuna Emergency Committee of Honduras). An indigenous group working on sustainable development, the Comite has faced arson and death threats from wealthy developers in local communities. Gregory helped the group film and edit footage of abuses committed recently in various Garifuna villages. He also spent time in Guatemala, working with Jesus Tecu Osorio, a survivor of Guatemala's civil war, who has been documenting the effects of the war on its victims and survivors. And Gregory conducted the training in El Salvador for Entre Amigos, a new Witness partner.
Because the clientele of Entre Amigos is primarily working class and poorly educated, the first challenge the group faces with new members is to help them understand their rights. Another challenge facing Entre Amigos is getting the government to enforce these rights. In El Salvador 75,000 people disappeared or were killed during a 12-year civil war that ended only 10 years ago. Although a democratic system has been in place since 1994, effects of the war linger – there is an extremely high poverty and crime rate and such a proliferation of guns that supermarkets post signs asking customers to check their weapons before shopping. Since El Salvador is still in the process of establishing basic rule of law and civil rights, addressing discrimination based on sexual orientation is not a priority.
At the initial training session last July, even before the cameras were brought in, Gregory encouraged the group to clarify its goals for the use of video.
In El Salvador, ordinances originally designed to fine lewd behavior in public are turning into excuses for illegal detainment and harassment of gays and transsexuals openly displaying affection. Abuses are common in the prison system, with guards harassing homosexual and transgender inmates and placing them with others who are openly homophobic. So Gregory discussed different ways to record and document such abuses.
The second day focused on technical camera training. Gregory explained that Entre Amigos would be using digital hand-held cameras and passed two of them around the group. Then he showed a video on how to use the cameras, stopping the tape to demonstrate each time it introduced a new topic. He made sure everyone in the room handled a camera and tried the techniques.
The group then moved outside to practice in the backyard, where they immediately faced lighting and sound challenges. Next they practiced filming in public, staging an interview with one of the Entre Amigos members, who pointed out where last year's gay pride parade took place.
The last day of the training focused on editing. Like a television cook who prepares different parts of a meal in advance, Gregory worked at night on his computer, logging and editing footage shot that day so that the group could see the various stages of the process. Almost all of the Entre Amigos participants see the process of editing as the link to everything they learned. With an understanding of editing, members of the group say, they see how future footage can be tailored to fit their goals and advance their cause.
William Hernandez, the director of Entre Amigos, remarks that what the group has learned during the week will permanently change the nature of its work. Joaquin Caceres, Entre Amigos' director of educational programming, agrees, emphasizing that Gregory has provided more than just camera training; he has given the group a strategy. "It's a tool we will utilize as much as possible to help spur people into action."
This article originally appeared in the Ford Foundation Report, Winter 2003. Dana Hughes is a staff writer for FFR.
Sunday, April 18, 2004
Advanced Writing Notes
OVERVIEW
This course aims to familiarize you with the nature and content of critical approaches to mass communication inquiry, and help you better understand the mass media and mass communication from a variety of perspectives. The course also is intended to encourage critical inquiry into communication theories, journalistic practices, news and entertainment content, and to assist all students in becoming more informed, thoughtful and discerning media consumers.
OBJECTIVES
Each student will be capable of defining mass communication, will be familiar with the various media of mass communication currently in use in society, and will understand the essential characteristics of each medium.
Each student will be familiar with the dominant theories of mass communication processes and effects and will understand the primary advantages and limitations of several approaches to mass communication research.
Each student will begin to demonstrate analytical and critical thinking skills required to link mass communication theory with cultural understandings and personal reading/viewing habits.
Each student will develop fundamental skills in writing for the various media (including print, broadcast (radio & T.V.), web, and public relations) and in writing genre articles in each area. A report on our tour of Asahi Shimbun will be required as well as an interview in English which will be written as a news paper article.
Good Luck and let's have an interesting and enjoyable time writting.
Clark
OVERVIEW
This course aims to familiarize you with the nature and content of critical approaches to mass communication inquiry, and help you better understand the mass media and mass communication from a variety of perspectives. The course also is intended to encourage critical inquiry into communication theories, journalistic practices, news and entertainment content, and to assist all students in becoming more informed, thoughtful and discerning media consumers.
OBJECTIVES
Each student will be capable of defining mass communication, will be familiar with the various media of mass communication currently in use in society, and will understand the essential characteristics of each medium.
Each student will be familiar with the dominant theories of mass communication processes and effects and will understand the primary advantages and limitations of several approaches to mass communication research.
Each student will begin to demonstrate analytical and critical thinking skills required to link mass communication theory with cultural understandings and personal reading/viewing habits.
Each student will develop fundamental skills in writing for the various media (including print, broadcast (radio & T.V.), web, and public relations) and in writing genre articles in each area. A report on our tour of Asahi Shimbun will be required as well as an interview in English which will be written as a news paper article.
Good Luck and let's have an interesting and enjoyable time writting.
Clark