Women in News Media

Introduction

The cultural symbolism of national TV anchors—of women in authority presenting the news—remains an important yardstick for the progress of women overall in the media, print, and broadcast. Women in the media—in print, broadcast, and online—have not only symbolic but the real power if they are present in enough numbers and have enough clout.

Women in the media also are role models for young girls and young women, just as are other women in the public eye; and the gains of women in the media are a public reflection of the gains of women in all fields. Tarr-Whelan, who served as ambassador to the UN Commission on the Status of Women in the Clinton administration and deputy assistant for women's concerns in the Carter White House, notes that women in 2009 made up only 17% of corporate boards and only 2.4% of the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies (Thomas, 15).

With the economic downturn causing layoffs and cutbacks at major newspapers and TV news organizations, specifically in the face of declining revenues and circulation in the Internet media age, there appears to be a climate in which there is less pressure—not more—than before for affirmative action for women and minorities in the media.

Few Women in Management in News

Despite these gains and the continuing challenges for women as reporters, the worst bad news for women in media today is the number of women in management, from TV news directors to corporate CEOs. There are many female news producers and reporters covering the news. When it comes to management although women undoubtedly have made inroads into the ranks of management at TV networks and national newspapers, as of 2009 The Washington Post had only recently named its first female managing editor, Elizabeth Spayd. In 2009, there had yet to be a female president of CNN, MSNBC, or Fox News Channel or a female president of a broadcast news division at ABC News, CBS News, or NBC News.

In local TV news, women represent 28.3% of news directors, the people running the news operation, according to a 2008 survey conducted by the Radio and Television News Directors Association (RTNDA), the industry trade group. In local radio news during the same period, women represented 20% of news directors. Among TV news positions, 71.7% of the news directors, as indicated, were men; 51.3% of the assistant news directors were men; and 69.5% of the managing editors were men, according to the RTNDA survey. Women were equally represented among executive producers, with women outnumbering men in this job, 55.2% to 44.8%. Women also outnumbered men among news anchors, a trend that has been developing in recent years, 56.8% female to 43.2% male. News reporters were equally divided between male and female, with sports-casters and weathercasters jobs overwhelmingly held by men (Tarr, 74).

The statistics from the American Society of Newspaper Editors tell a similar story. In 2009 newspaper newsrooms had two men for every woman—63% men compared to 37% women in 2009—and those percentages have remained ...