Upload
nathan-nye
View
213
Download
0
Tags:
Embed Size (px)
DESCRIPTION
Research paper by Nathan Nye detailing sexism in the news industry places of prestige. 2012.
Citation preview
Nathan Nye Laura Roselle PubPol 202 5 December 2011
Making the Front-‐Page: Female Journalists in Places of Prestige Abstract This research paper aimed to find how women fit into places of prestige in
journalism by examining front-‐page articles and coding them for gender and topic to
determine how often women were prominently featured and if that corresponded to
a certain topic.
The data showed that men are more than twice as likely to be the authors of
articles on the front page of The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. It also
showed that women were more likely to write “soft” news, while men were more
likely to write “hard” news, particularly articles that deal with international affairs.
Introduction This research is focused on the idea of women in places of prestige in
journalism. Considering two well-‐known papers on the American East Coast, The
New York Times and Wall Street Journal, this project will analyze the frequency with
which female journalists “make the front page,” or essentially are given the place of
prestige in prestige papers. Papers like The Wall Street Journal and The New York
Times are two of the most dominant sources of information in the United States.
However, it is important to question if benevolent or hostile sexism exists in these
traditional journalism establishments. The goal is to determine whether or not the
glass ceiling found in other industries can be found in journalism.
Literature Review
Journalists
In a study done to typify the American journalist, scholars found that the
average journalist twenty years ago was male, white, Protestant, married, college-‐
educated and in his 30s (Weaver and Wilhoit 1996). The research also showed there
were strong pockets of journalists in the South and Atlantic coast. The same study
showed that in the younger generation more non-‐white journalists were appearing;
however, journalists still came from established dominant cultural groups. The only
exception is for Jewish-‐Americans who are overrepresented in journalism. The same
study also showed that racial minorities tend to work most in radio and are least
likely to work in news magazines (Weaver and Wilhoit 1996).
Over the period of this study little progress was made in the field of religious
diversity in journalism. Most journalists were still Protestant, though some small
headway was made in the None/Other category (Weaver and Wilhoit 1996).
Politically, the researchers found a heavy slant towards journalists who were
left of center politically, though the extreme right also gained some traction by 1992.
This was a reversal of a move towards the center of politics seen in previous years
(Weaver and Wilhoit 1996l).
Finally, they found that the only regularly read publications by all journalists
were large east coast papers, which form a kind of “prestige hierarchy” (Weaver and
Wilhoit 1996).
Women in the Workplace
Scholars of gender have done extensive work on gender and the workplace.
Studies have found multiple factors that affect both the amount of women in a field
and the amount of pay they receive and the reasons for this (Bertrand, Goldin, and
Katz 2010). .
Interesting studies have been done about the participation of women in some
fields thought to be male-‐dominated (Varma 2002). For instance, a study on the
gender gap in IT showed that women are less likely to go into IT for several reasons.
One of the largest factors was exposure to technology from a young age (Varma
2002). The study found that men were exposed to technology, such as video games,
from an early age, whereas women were not (Varma 2002). Social stigma about
fields viewed as traditionally male or female were also important (Varma 2002).
Other scholars have found that regardless of field though, there are levels
and ranks of industries that women are less likely to infiltrate (Bertrand, Goldin, and
Katz 2010). Only 2. 3% of CEO’s of Fortune 1500 companies are female (Bertrand,
Goldin, and Katz 2010). Some experiments have suggested that this is because
women dislike hypercompetitive environments or negotiating for higher
pay(Bertrand, Goldin, and Katz 2010). One of the biggest reasons given is that
women are often caring for children, which is incompatible with the high-‐powered
corporate lifestyle(Bertrand, Goldin, and Katz 2010). Women who stay in the high-‐
powered business field are less likely to have children and also less likely to be
married than their male peers (Bertrand, Goldin, and Katz 2010).
Women with MBAs were also an interesting subsection to consider. After
graduation, women make around $115k, while their male counterparts make $130k;
after nine years women make $250k, while men make $400k (Bertrand, Goldin, and
Katz 2010). Adjusted for hourly wages, some researches cite that in general women
make 80% of what men make (O’Neill 2003).
Studies have shown that women do not make less than their male
counterparts because of a lack of productivity or difference in skill (O’Neill 2003).
Brothers and sisters raised by the same parents have similar levels of achievement
(O’Neill 2003). However, it is attributed most commonly to the fact that women
often bear the responsibility of caring for children and housekeeping and are less
able to work long hours (O’Neill 2003; Gaziano 1986; Bertrand, Goldin, and Katz
2010). Finally, women often choose employers and fields based on the type of
employer who would be friendly to mothers (O’Neill 2003). Studies have shown
generally that women are moving into more “high-‐skilled” majors in college, which
has deflated the wage gap to some extent (Eide 1994).
Women and Journalism
Scholars say that women are declining as newspaper readers at a rate even
higher than men (Bogart 1993). Research said that women viewed newspapers as
inherently masculine. This is because most newsrooms are still male, in fact 2/3
male (Bogart 1993). Studies also showed that in terms of space in newspapers,
traditionally masculine topics took up the most space, adding to the women’s
conviction that newspapers were spaces for men (Bogart 1993).
Women in Journalism
The same study that tried to typify the American journalist also showed that
the amount of women in journalism went from 1/5 to more than 1/3 (Weaver and
Wilhoit 1996). In 1977 the amount of women in college journalism programs
surpassed men for the first time (Weaver and Wilhoit 1996). However, from 1982 to
1992, journalists were no more likely to be women than before (Weaver and Wilhoit
1996). In 1989 women were 45.2% of the US workforce, but between 33 and 34%
of the journalistic workforce (Weaver and Wilhoit 1996). Numbers also show that
women do not stay in the field very long, with significantly fewer women having
more than 12 years experience when compared to men (Weaver and Wilhoit 1996).
This is why there was no significant increase in female journalists, even though
there were more female journalists, women left the business (Weaver and Wilhoit
1996).
Female journalists are less likely to be married than male journalists (48% v.
65%) (Weaver and Wilhoit 1996). They are also much less likely to have any
children (28% v. 44%) (Weaver and Wilhoit 1996).
However, women also gained respect and responsibility in the field fairly
quickly with 41% saying they supervised news and other journalists, only 2% less
than their male counterparts (Weaver and Wilhoit 1996). Women were found in
upper management (18%), but found significantly more in lower management
(32%), more so than their male counterparts (30%) (Weaver and Wilhoit 1996).
Women worked most commonly in news magazine and were least likely to
be in radio broadcast. There have also been several studies on women in television
journalism, a field in which they are underrepresented. For many years, female
anchors were given stories that were unserious and generally less newsworthy
(Singleton 1982). It was found that when broken down by topic, female television
reporters delivered significantly less news dealing with foreign affairs, economy,
and disaster. Women also rarely delivered feature stories. Women were given more
domestic government stories, social problem pieces, and “women’s issues” topics
(Singleton 1982).
In one study, female anchors discussed the perceived obstacles in being a
female news anchor. A recurring theme for them was that their physical appearance
was very important to their job and to their hiring. Anchors also referenced
unwritten gender and ethnic quotas to fulfill the appearance of diversity (Gaziano
1986). They also listed not having a professional network and not being able to
blend in to an all-‐male workspace as negatives.
In other areas of journalism, prejudice also remains according to other
scholars. Sports writers are still heavily male, with few opportunities for women
(Hardin and Shane 2005). They discovered that few women were able to make it
past the lower ranks of sports departments (Hardin and Shane 2005). There was
also a stigma attached to being a female sports writer. While women who were in
the field enjoyed their job, researchers found that tokenism and immobility often
drove women to leave sports journalism (Hardin and Shane 2005). Many were still
hopeful about the future of women in sports journalism though, and reported that
they encouraged other women to enter into the field(Hardin and Shane 2005).
Researchers have also examined what happens when women do reach the
upper-‐level in the newspaper industry. They’ve found that women in magazines
who are managers tend to bunch between low and mid-‐level managerial positions,
with only 4.5% ever becoming top managers (Shaw 1984). Particularly at the
demanding level of manager, the aforementioned home and family life reenters the
scenario. Scholars found that women feel as if they make a sacrifice every day for
their job; however, only 7% resented the sacrifices they had to make (Shaw 1984).
Women reported specifically about the newspaper industry that it was no
kid-‐friendly and that their employers were unaccommodating when it came to
questions of child care (Hardin and Shane 2005)
Methodology
The research for this project has three components-‐ to find the gender(s) of
the reporter(s), to record what publication it can be found in, and to effectively
determine a subject category for each article.
The Papers
The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times were chosen as the papers
this study would use to mind data. As major east coast papers, they are seen as the
pinnacle of success for a reporter (Weaver and Wilhoit 1996). As shown by other
research women often have difficulty breaking through the glass ceiling in other
fields (Bertrand, Goldin, and Katz 2010). Some . A random number algorithm chose
25 dates from 2005 to 2010, which are attached in the appendix. The dates also
excluded Saturday and Sunday because The Wall Street Journal began to print
weekend editions after the start date of the study. One of the dates chosen was
December 25, 2007, on which The Wall Street Journal did not print an edition, so
only The New York Times has articles for a single date. For each date, the study
analyzed every full-‐length, non-‐caption article with a byline on the front page. The
editions used were the morning editions in the microfilm library of Duke University.
The list of articles, authors, genders, and category is attached in the appendix.
The Genders
Each article was coded for writer gender using female writer, male writer,
mixed gender group, all female group, all male group as the available codes. Authors
were assigned codes based on general usage of names and the cross-‐referencing of
online profiles when available. There was no accounting for transgender reporters.
For this study, gender and sex will be used interchangeably.
The Categories
In order to determine if women were more successful when writing on
specific issues, each article was coded based on content into a single category.
The categories cover several specific things, but also have broader topics if an article
was otherwise unable to be categorized. Business and Economics include any
stories dealing with private companies or the economy generally, regardless of
country concerned. Stories about oil are also included here. Columns are for feature
columnists, regardless of the topic for the column. Culture and Review is used for
pieces on arts, music, literature, review, and cultural trends. Crime was used for
articles that focused on court proceedings that did not include political figures or
the Supreme Court. Domestic Policy and Politics includes any articles about local
or national political figures and policies. Stories about political figures opinions even
if they are on another topic were coded as politics. This also includes any stories
prominently featuring the Supreme Court of the United States. Education covered
stories concerned with the administration and practices of schools and school
systems, including higher education. Health, Science, and Technology was used
for any story that dealt with news about healthcare, medicine, science, or scientists.
Human Interest and Profiles was used for stories that were not hard news, but
rather stories about individuals or groups. This category also covers obituaries.
International Politics and Policy focused on the political happenings of non-‐US
countries, except for acts of war. Religion was used to tag any story prominently
featuring religion as the main story element. Sports and Sport News covered
athletics and the news surrounding it, both domestic and international. War is
concerned with direct acts of war, essentially violence, and it supersedes the
domestic and international categories. Finally, Domestic News and International
News were used for any article that didn’t fit directly in any of the other categories.
In cases where the category for the article was debatable, the amount of the
story devoted to any category was the determining factor. For instance, if there
were an article about possible regulations concerning a new drug being developed
in the US, it would be the amount of space spent discussing either the regulations or
the drug that would determine if it were placed in the Health, Science, and
Technology or Domestic Policy and Politics.
Hypotheses
Based on the initial findings of the literature review, the hypotheses for this
study are:
1. Fewer women will be reporters on front-‐page articles of The New York
Times and the Wall Street Journal.
2. Women will be more likely to write articles categorized in the more “soft
news” categories, primarily Human Interest and Profile, Health, Science, and
Technology, Culture and Review, and Religion. Men will be more prominent
in what are generally considered harder news topics, specifically
International Politics and Policy and War.
3. The New York Times, known as a more “liberal paper” will have more front-‐
page female writers.
Findings
The data used includes 49 front-‐pages and 232 articles. This study considers
the number and gender of writers holistically, number and gender in regard to
category, and finally number and gender on a paper-‐by-‐paper basis.
Overview
Each of the 232 articles was coded for authorship gender, which feel into one
of five categories. Man for an individual male reporter, Woman for an individual
female reporter, All-‐Male Group for two or more male writers, All-‐Female Group
for two or more female reporters, and Mixed Gender Group for two or more
reporters with at least two people of differing sex. The numbers showed that
45.7% were written by men (individual), 21.6% were written by women
(individual), 16.8% by all-‐mall groups, 14.2% by mixed gender groups, 1.7% by
all-‐female groups. The distribution can be seen in Figure 1.
Figure 1
These findings support the hypothesis that fewer women make the front-‐page of
major newspapers. Excluding the groups of writers, articles on the front-‐page are
more than twice as likely to be written by men than women. However, an
unexpected number was that of the All-‐Female groups. It is by far the least occurring
authorship combination with less than 2% of total articles written. This is especially
striking in contrast with the All-‐Male groups, which is more statistically common
than a Mixed Gender group.
Also, consider if the all-‐male and all-‐female categories are merged with their
respective sexes. While the mixed gender must remain by itself, that would mean
that 62.5% of articles were written by men and 23.3% were written by women, with
the remaining 14.2% being written by a combination of men and women.
Women make up 34% of the total journalistic workforce (Weaver, et al), but
the number of front-‐page articles in The New York Times and the Wall Street
Journal is significantly lower. This can most likely be linked to earlier studies, which
demonstrate the lack of women in high-‐ranking positions in other fields (Bertrand,
Goldin, and Katz 2010). Essentially, there is a difference expected from broader
research, but in the prestige place in a prestige paper (Weaver and Wilhoit 1996).
this study shows there are even fewer than would be expected.
Categories
In the 14 categories that the study used, many did not achieve numbers to
make them statistically significant; however, others offer interesting insight.
Domestic News
In the field of Domestic News, which was the catchall for stories in the US, out
of 17 stories, 41.2% were written by men, 29.4%, by women, 17.6% by mixed
gender groups, and 11.8% by all-‐male groups (Figure 2). While not necessarily a
large enough number to be indicative of larger trends, there is some suggestion that
in the category that amounts to random stories, women move closer to men in
percentage of articles written. This echoes studies showing that women were given
less newsworthy stories (Singleton 1982).
Figure 2
Domestic Politics and Policy
Out of a total 71 articles involving domestic politics and policy, 47.2% were
authored by men, 16.7% by all-‐mall groups, 16.7 by mixed gender groups, 15.3% by
women, and 2.8% by all-‐female groups (Figure 3). Because US politics tends to
garner important stories for major US papers, this number supports the already
stated conclusion that men are given the more newsworthy stories.
Figure 3
Economics and Business
In the Economics and Business category, which had 41 total articles, 31.7%
were authored by men, 17% by women, 26.8% by all-‐male groups, and 26.8% mixed
gender groups (Figure 4).
Figure 4
Health, Science, and Technology
Health, Science and Technology was the only category in which there were
more female reporters than male. Out of ten articles, 50% were written by women,
30% by men, 10% by all-‐female groups, and 10% by all-‐male groups (Figure 5).
Figure 5
Human Interest and Profile
Human Interest and profile had 14 stories, of them 64.3% were written by
men and 42.9% were written by women (Figure 6). These numbers more closely
reflect the aforementioned statistics regarding journalism generally.
Figure 6
International News
The idea that women are given less newsworthy stories was reinforced in
International news with 15.8% of 19 stories being written by women. Men were
responsible for 57.9%, while 15.8% were by all-‐male groups, and 10.5% by mixed
gender groups (Figure 7). The fact that all-‐male groups have the same percentage as
individual women further demonstrates the point that women aren’t given the hard
news stories.
Figure 7
International Politics
Of the 26 stories in the International Politics category, 50% were written by
men, 23% by all-‐male groups, 11.5% by women, 11.5% by mixed gender groups,
and 3.8% by all-‐female groups (Figure 8). Studies have shown that women often
choose employers based on the amount of convenience it can provide for them as
mothers (O’Neill 2003; Gaziano 1986; Bertrand, Goldin, and Katz 2010). For both
international politics and news, this study seems particularly relevant. If being a
parent were important to a woman, then the travel required working on
international stories would be a major deterrent.
Figure 8
Other categories
Columns, Crime, Culture & Review, Education, Religion, Sports, and War all
garnered less than ten articles, so I won’t include the exact statistics, but there were
several interesting facts that emerged in those small samples.
There were two feature columns, both of which were written by men.
Generally, columns are seen as places of prestige for papers, and as stated earlier,
prestige markets tend to have a glass ceiling for women (Bertrand, Goldin, and Katz
2010).
Stories on religions were 50% written by men, 50% by women. These stories
are generally not hard news and the fact that they were one of the few evenly
divided category is unsurprising given earlier studies on newsworthiness and
gender (Singleton 1982).
The hypothesis that stories on war would be written primarily by men had
equivocal support. Individual men wrote 57.1% of them, with 42.9% written by
mixed gender pairs. While no individual women wrote stories on warfare, they were
involved in a significant portion of the stories.
Men wrote both of the two sports stories that were on the front page in the
dates given. Once again, this is certainly not in the range needed to support any
larger trends; however, this small sample does correspond with studies about the
difficulties of being a female sports reporter (Hardin and Shane 2005).
Conclusion
Earlier studies and this studies hypothesis on the way in which gender
relates to news assignments are generally supported by the data found on the 49
front pages coded. Women write more soft news than men in the data collected, this
is most evident in categories related to international news.
Included is a graph (Figure 9) which composites the entire number of articles
written and compares it to those written by women (individual women and all
female groups combined). Mixed gender pairs are not counted towards the number
of women.
0
20
40
60
80
100Co
lumn
Crim
eCu
lture
&Re
view
Dom
estic
New
sDo
mes
tic
Politi
cs &
Poli
cyEc
onom
ics &
Busin
ess
Educ
ation
Healt
h, S
cienc
e
& Te
chno
logy
Hum
an In
tere
st&
Prof
ileIn
tern
ation
alNe
wsIn
tern
ation
al
Politi
cs &
Poli
cyRe
ligion
Spor
ts
War
2 23 27
5
17
13
71
7
41
24 6
10
6
15
3
19
4
26
36
2 4
TotalArticles
Written byWomen
Gender and Category
Sex
Num
ber
Figure 9
By Paper
This section of the results aims to find if either The New York Times or The
Wall Street Journal have more female writers.
The New York Times
Out of 133 articles from The New York Times, 56.4% of them were written by
individual men, 23.3% by individual women, 15.3% by groups of men, 11.3% by
mixed gender groups, and 1.5% by groups of women.
The Wall Street Journal
Coding revealed in 99 articles from The Wall Street Journal that 33.3% of
articles were written by men, 20.2% by mixed gender groups, 17.2% by women,
17.2% by groups of men, and 2% by groups of women.
Conclusion
The findings of this research absolutely did not support the hypothesis that
The New York Times would have more front-‐page feature female journalists, but
rather that The Wall Street Journal was more equitable in the distribution of gender,
though there was still a strong tendency to have more male journalists.
Discussion and Conclusions
As stated in various other research, women have a difficult tasking in
infiltrating prestige markets (Bertrand, Goldin, and Katz 2010). These results
would support the idea that there is an overrepresentation of men versus the
general populace. What’s significant is that in journalism, the numbers start out
much more evenly. At Columbia’s graduate program in journalism, consistently
voted one of the best journalism graduate schools in the United States, 52% of
students are women (Demographics 2011). Compare that to the small percentage of
featured female reporters at The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal and
there is the possibility that there is very tangible institutional sexism in the
journalism industry.
However, there is much more to study when it comes to where sexism is first
visible in journalism. A possible solution would be to compile a list of every
journalist employed by The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal and
compare the gender of the journalists featured on the front page to the ratio of
journalists employed by the organization. This could show whether or not sexism
starts in the hiring process or in the editorial office.
Finally, an expansion of this project would be to take the preliminary results
found here the relative preponderance about Health, Science, & Technology and see
if it holds true in a larger sample and try to find a cause for that.
Refrences:
Bertrand, Marriane, Claudia Goldin, and Lawrence Katz. 2010. "Dynamics of the Gender Gap for Young Professionals in the Financial and Corporate Sectors." American Economic Journal 2, no. 3 : 228-‐255.
Bogart, Leo. 1993. "Newspaper of the future: Our look at the next
century." Newspaper Research Journal 14, no. 2: 2-‐10.Communication & Mass Media Complete, EBSCOhost
"Demographics — Journalism, Columbia University in the City of New York — PhDs.org Graduate School Guide." PhDs.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 1 Dec. 2011. <http://graduate-‐school.phds.org/university/columbia/pro
Eide, Eric. 1994. College major choice and changes in the gender wage
gap. Contemporary Economic Policy 12, (2), 55-‐55 Gaziano, Cecilie, and Kristin McGrath. 1986. "Measuring the Concept of
Credibility." Journalism Quarterly 63, no. 3: 451-‐462.Communication & Mass Media Complete, EBSCOhost
Hardin, Marle , and Stacie Shane. 2005. "Female Sports Journalists: Are We There Yet? No." Newspaper Research Journal 26, no. 4, 22-‐35.
O'Neill, June. 2003. "Catching Up: The Gender Gap in Wages, circa 2000."The American
Economic Review 93, no. 2. 309. Shaw, Donald Lewis. 1984. "News About Slavery from 1820-‐1860 In Newspapers
of South, North and West." Journalism Quarterly 61, no. 3: 483-‐492. Communication & Mass Media Complete, EBSCOhost
Singleton, Loy A. , and Stephanie L. Cook. 1982. "Television Network News
Reporting by Female Correspondents: An Update." Journal of Broadcasting26, no. 1, 487-‐491.
Weaver, David H., and G. Cleveland Wilhoit. 1996. "Basic Characteristics of US Journalists." In The American Journalist in the 1990s: U.S. News people at the End of an Era. New York: Erlbaum, 1-‐28.
Varma, Roli. 2002. "Women in Information Technology: A Case Study of Undergraduate Students in a Minority-‐Serving Institution." Bulletin of Science, Technology & Science 22, no. 4, 274-‐282.
Appendix- Dates selected: 2005-‐03-‐07 2005-‐03-‐11 2005-‐04-‐19 2005-‐06-‐28 2005-‐08-‐05 2005-‐08-‐23 2006-‐10-‐11 2007-‐07-‐27 2007-‐09-‐10 2007-‐12-‐07 2007-‐12-‐25 (No Wall Street Journal published) 2008-‐01-‐03 2008-‐02-‐19 2008-‐05-‐05 2008-‐06-‐03 2008-‐10-‐31 2008-‐11-‐11 2008-‐12-‐11 2008-‐12-‐17 2009-‐01-‐20 2009-‐03-‐13 2009-‐03-‐25 2009-‐12-‐11 2010-‐12-‐01 2010-‐12-‐20