NEWS AND INSIGHTS UPDATE:
Journalism is part of the larger media business, so it’s not surprising that women still lag significantly behind men in that industry just as they do in other industries. Susan Antilla whose journalistic credits span a 30-year career and include Bloomberg View, TheStreet.com, and more, shares some insights into this inequality on CNN.com:
“Men make up 60% of newspaper employees, write 80% of newspaper op-eds and author most articles in ‘thought leader’ magazines such as the New Yorker, which last year had 242 female bylines, 613 male. The record for ‘new media’ is better than print, though men and women are still nowhere near parity. In a report earlier this year, the Op-Ed Project said 33% of op-eds in the Huffington Post and on Salon were written by women.
“At Newsweek, where a woman, Tina Brown, has run the show since the merger of Newsweek and The Daily Beast website in November of 2010, the imbalance has improved in the four decades since the women’s lawsuit. In a March 18, 2010 cover story ‘Are We There Yet’ written by three Newsweek women, the authors said 39 percent of the people on the masthead were women, up from 25% in 1970. But men still had the star power, writing 43 of the 49 cover stories the previous year.
“Now try to square those numbers with these: Over the past 10 years, between 70 and 76% of all journalism and mass communications graduates have been women.”
When I started Women on Business in 2008, the primary factor that motivated me was the problem that I was writing on numerous websites about business but the vast majority of the other writers on these sites were men. I didn’t like the lack of diverse voices being heard in the business world and decided to create a website where business women could demonstrate their thought leadership and gain a seat at the table.
I’m happy to report that four years later, I do see more women writing and talking about business online. To echo Susan Antilla’s point, the gender imbalance in new media journalism is fading faster than it is in traditional journalism. However, we still have a long way to go until online content and conversation related to business topics is truly gender-diverse.
Visit some major business media sites and scroll through the authors. It will be challenging to find business sites with a writing team that isn’t male-dominated. However, if you do find sites that feature more female business writers than men, share them in the comments below. They deserve to be recognized.
Get the details: Why do women still lag in journalism? via www.cnn.com
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Susan Gunelius
Susan Gunelius is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Women on Business. She is a 30-year veteran of the marketing field and has authored a dozen books about marketing, branding, and social media, including the highly popular Ultimate Guide to Email Marketing, 30-Minute Social Media Marketing, Content Marketing for Dummies, Blogging All-in-One for Dummies and Kick-ass Copywriting in 10 Easy Steps. Susan’s marketing-related content can be found on Entrepreneur.com, Forbes.com, MSNBC.com, BusinessWeek.com, and more. Susan is President & CEO of KeySplash Creative, Inc., a marketing communications company. She has worked in corporate marketing roles and through client relationships with AT&T, HSBC, Citibank, Intuit, The New York Times, Cox Communications, and many more large and small companies around the world. Susan also speaks about marketing, branding and social media at events around the world and is frequently interviewed by television, online, radio, and print media organizations about these topics. She holds an MBA in Management and Strategy and a Bachelor of Science degree in Marketing and is a Certified Professional Career Coach (CPCC).
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