As you watch, listen and read the news today and this week, think about these statistics:
When W was first selected, the media watchers Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting looked at who appeared on the evening news on ABC, CBS and NBC. Ninety-two percent of all U.S. sources interviewed were white, 85 percent were male, and where party affiliation was identifiable, 75 percent were Republican.
Those numbers haven’t changed much. According to the Freedom Forum Media Studies Center, on the three main U.S. broadcast networks, 87 percent of “expert” sound bytes are provided by men.
On the Sunday talk shows, it’s worse. The ratio of male to female guests is 9 to 1. After 9/11, the frequency of women guests on those shows dropped an additional 39 percent, according to the White House Project.
The picture isn’t as bleak when it comes to women in management. Women currently hold 35.5 percent of newsroom supervisory positions, according to the American Society of Newspaper Editors. That’s slightly better than 33 percent in 1999. Overall, women make up 37.7 percent of the newsroom.
And then there are magazines. A great website, womentk.com, tracks the ratio of male to female writers in national general interest magazines, including The Atlantic, Harper’s, The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker and Vanity Fair. The ratio of male to female bylines in those magazines is 1,037 to 355. That’s 1,037 male writers and 355 female writers.
Because so many of you have probably gotten used to seeing so many men on television, it’s important to point out that on cable television, the only women who have their own shows are Paula Zahn, (extreme fluff), Nancy Grace, Rita Cosby and Greta Van Susteren. Grace, Cosby and Van Susteren spend their valuable airtime on murders, kidnapping and other sensational stories.
The media is still a man’s world and the lefty press isn’t any better than the mainstream. Why is this important? Because women and men come to the table with very different life experiences and views than men. When I started out in radio, I was the only female on an all-male staff. The only stories about women’s issues came from me. The only stories about how a merger would impact people, rather than pocketbooks, came from me. It’s not that the men didn’t care about these issues — it’s that they didn’t think about them. And that’s why it’s important to fight for and encourage more women to get into management. At the end of the day, that’s where the ultimate decisions are made.
I noticed a slight change on the sunday talk shows after the White House Project came out with its report.
Try to keep these stats in mind this week…
Happy Sunday.
I’m glad you put up this diary today. I was on my own depressed mini-rant(to myself)last week for this very subject. And I have a day where I just hate men in general. What set me off was a show I like very much-The Colbert Report. He was doing a retrospective of his one hundred shows and the clips were of past guest and bits he does and it was all men, men and more men. It’s oppressive and depressing. So I sat in my apt. at 11:30 that night ranting and raving to myself about men in general and how far we haven’t come.
So when my sister showed up the next day she got to listen to me rant all over again(she’s used to it). I was asking her how the Daily Show would fare say if it was made up of all women with one token man. Would it still be the odds on favorite of so many liberals/progressives? Would men watch a great show like that if it was all women?
I was up early this morning watching Lou Dobbs and all of his upcoming guests were men. All of them.
Like you said, it’s incredibly irritating. We have to continue discussing and pointing out the obvious in order for any of it to change. Most people don’t want to hear or talk about it.
I get to the point where I feel like “Debbie the Downer,” that woman on SNL who always ruins the good mood with a negative statistic. I love her! But she’s no fun at parties…
😉
I know what you mean. I remember when I was out and about more, still able to work and it seemed I was always bringing into a conversation something relating to women not being equal -pertaining to the conversation at hand and I usually got told I must be one of those ‘women’s libbers’..some people were still actually using that term around here in the late 80’s…for all I know some neanderthals still are.(or like Rush Limbaugh where it morphed into feminazi)
But speaking of the MSM, that’s another reason I don’t watch it anymore. Partly due to the crap that it is and also simply because there are no equal representations of women speaking on any of the ‘news’ shows. I’m sure it wouldn’t really be that hard to find women who are experts on everything from terrorism, economy, jobs and so on. Simply institutional sexism just like racism.
This got me to thinking about the latest horror…more women are graduating from college than men. OMG…call the press. Men are being left behind, it’s time to end this “librul” bias towards women because its working too well. And all I can think is “Yeah, and too bad women still can’t get the better jobs even though they are better educated and beter prepared.”
I’m sorry, while I love men and respect many of them, it is high time women have an equal share and that time hasn’t come yet, even with our superiour scholastic achievements. What the F does it take?