Women in the Media

Collected statistics on women working in and represented by the media.

Permanent and public space for this information is on the Center for New Words website: see "Women in Media: Facts & Figures"--and please share the link far and wide!

Please note if you'd like your wiki post to be kept just between us WAMmers.

• Visit www.mediareporttowomen.com and click on Industry Statistics
• The op-ed pages of national newspapers are about 75-85% male bylines (various sources).
• 2005, The White House project did a study and found that 11% of the talking heads on highly influential Sunday Morning political talk shows—that is, the experts on TV who debate the news—were female. A 2006 follow up study found 14%. (The White House Project)
• Martha Lauzen, of San Diego State, tracks the number of women producers, writers, directors and editors working in Hollywood-- it declined to 15 per cent last year, and we lost 3 of 4 women heads of studios—all replaced by men. (citation from Carol Jenkins, Women’s Media Center)
• In radio: 90% of the program directors are men; 85% of the general managers to whom they report are men. Going up the chain, of the major publicly traded radio companies, collectively owning 2,364 radio stations, 86% of their top officers are men. (Source: MIW Radio group). Talkers Magazine’s “Heavy Hundred” talk show list, dated March 2007, includes 85 male hosts, 15 female hosts. Talkers’ full list of 250 talk show hosts: 86% men, 14% women. (Citation from The Women’s Media Center)
• Only 5 per cent, or 67 of the television stations in this country are owned by women. Women of color own less than one half of one percent. Those numbers come from the Free Press study, aptly titled” Out of the Picture.” The percentage of women who have a majority stake in radio is a mere 3.4 per cent—or 483 of 11,884 stations. Those numbers come from the group of top women working in radio, Mentoring and Inspiring Women, which, against the odds, they do… And we refer to another statistic—this one from an Annenberg study-- that sums up our problem—in mainstream media we hold about 3 per cent of titles that could be described most effectively as “clout” positions. (cited by the Women’s Media Center)
• Out of the Picture , on minority and women ownership of TV stations.

http://acmeboston.wordpress.com/2006/09/21/new-report-on-minority-women-tv-station-ownership-in-us/

• Locked Out: The Lack of Gender and Ethnic Diversity on Cable News Continues from May -- three cable channels post and pre Imus controversay.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200705070003?f=h_top

• On problems women filmmakers are having with funding which was published on Women's Media Center site June 28th: Joining Audience to Filmmaker by Ariel Dougherty www.womensmediacenter.com/ex/062807.html
• Who Makes the News? Global Media Monitoring Project, 2005

Analysis written by Margaret Gallagher -- This report is Global and very comprehensive

www.whomakesthenews.org   

• MISSING: Information on Women's Lives

A Report from the National Council for Research on Women, written by Mary Thom, about the Abrupt Change in W administration to Alter, Bury, Distort, and stop collecting data about women and girls. March 2004

• The NYT's Woman Problem

Is The New York Times still pro-choice? You wouldn't know it from reading the op-ed page.

By Garance Franke-Ruta, The American Prospect. Posted March 22, 2006.

http://www.alternet.org/story/33860/

• Men Dominate U.S. Newspaper Coverage, MU Researcher Finds

COLUMBIA, Mo. – According to census statistics, women account for more than half the U.S. population, but a study from a researcher at the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Journalism shows that newspaper coverage does not reflect those numbers. María Len-Ríos, assistant advertising professor at MU, found that men appear more frequently than women by a ratio of 4-to-1 in news stories and a ratio of 2-to-1 in photographs. opening paragraph

www.wifp.org/communicationnews.html#anchor5221

• More resources: http://www.motherjones.com/news/exhibit/2006/01/limited_ambitions.html
• Alternet published this speech Jane Fonda gave on behalf of the Women's Media Center. It has lots of good stats (short on citations) but also good stories.

http://alternet.org/mediaculture/46820/

• Two good reports from Media Matters on race and gender

http://mediamatters.org/action_center/media_diversity/

• Stats on women in management positions in radio: http://www.radiomiw.com/PDFs/PR-GenderAnalysis2006.pdf">http://www.radiomiw.com/PDFs/PR-GenderAnalysis2006.pdf, http://www.radiomiw.com/">http://www.radiomiw.com/ (click on press releases)
• "Women's Writing Often Gets Lost in Translation," by Anna Clark. Published in Women's eNews, June 28, 2007.

• Women Directors Shine, But Numbers Still Low August 01, 2007  By Christy Lemire http://www.backstage.com/bso/news_reviews/film/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003619242

   

• Numerous reports and studies on the International Women's Media Foundation website at  www.iwmf.org/resources/stats.php
• Not explicitly feminist, this NYT article, Fluent in Two Languages: Studio and Independent (Sep 08, 07) discusses the media consolidation in Hollywood and how “sophisticated projects” are no longer in the business model of the big Hollywood studios.   Kathleen Kennedy is the focus of the article. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/08/movies/08kenn.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1189263689-qX4FmUKl6UWZQ907Tfh97A