Women in the Media

For a journalism class that I am currently taking, we had to do a little mini research assignment where we look at 20 different newspaper articles and examined how women we involved in them (we they featured in the story, wrote the story, quoted, etc.). I thought that my findings were incredibley interesting so I thought I would share them with you. This research report was actually an intriguing enjoyable exercise. In order to make it not bias, all the articles were chosen from The New York Times print publication. Since five stories needed to be examined each day, the first story from each on the following sections were selected; Front Page, National, Business, Sports and the Arts. I chose these sections because they varied. Also, I figured New York Times readers would notice the first story in each section first, and thought they would be the best to analyze.
Considering I only conducted the research for a week, many of the stories in each section were similar. The Front Page covered issues in Libyan five out of the seven days, with the remaining two days discussing job growth in the U.S. and a similarly the nation’s budget. Surprisingly, female journalists were featured three of the days, but Hillary Clinton, expert economists, and another leader were the only women mentioned in the main story during this week. The National section varied the most. On four of the days, female writers reported, and of these four stories, three of them were written by the same woman. Throughout the week, six women were featured in these stories. The Business section was covered predominately by men. Although the sexes of some of the names are unclear, I believe only one woman reported for the week, and only three women were mentioned in the seven stories. The Sports section seemed to be even more sexist. Only one story was written by a woman, that covered issue’s with Barry Bonds. The Associated Press wrote an article about the Skiing U.S. titles and I was happy to see the women champions mentioned before the men. The Arts section of the paper had to have been the most women-friendly. Three of the journalists were women, and over five women were mentioned throughout the week.
I honestly thought there would be a more even spilt between men and women featured in these stories. I was not expecting to see men completely dominate the printed publication. I feel like when women were writing the story, a woman was more likely to be featured in the story. Even so though, the women featured had to be experts or highly recognized in their field, such as the Secretary of State, Supreme Court Justice, Former Governor of Alaska, CEO of a company, Mayor of the city, or an expert. Otherwise they were shown as weak individuals affected by the issue or in the Arts section because they were in the show being discussed. I hope that this changes in my lifetime, so that future generations can recognize women as creditable and important individuals.

http://www.nytimes.com/