FY 2000-2001 Annual Report
A WorldWide Network of Women
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"The biggest difference between men and women as editors and journalists is that women seem to consider the reader."
Ruthie Blum
Editor, Jerusalem Post Magazine
After more than a decade of working with women journalists internationally, the International Women's Media Foundation decided it was time to paint a portrait of where women in the media find themselves now and where they might find themselves in the future. Leading in a Different Language: Will Women Change the News Media, a 19-page report published in English, French and Spanish, incorporates IWMF research, anecdotal evidence from surveys conducted among women journalists, and research done by media scholars and media associations. Many of the observations and conclusions came from the more than 100 women media leaders from 60 countries who attended the IWMF's groundbreaking conference on women in the news media in Washington, DC in May 2000.
The majority of media companies worldwide are still managed by men. The Radio-Television
News Directors Association in the United States reported in its 2001 survey
of women and minorities that women are just 12.6 percent of television general
managers at stations that do news. Women are only 20.2 percent of television
news directors. In radio, women are 12.3 percent of the general managers and
21.9 percent of news directors.
Similarly, two surveys by the American Society of Newspaper Editors - in 2000
and 2001 - found that women are only 34 percent of newsroom supervisors. In
other parts of the globe, the situation is even bleaker. According to a 1995
poll sponsored by UNESCO, women are eight percent of broadcasting managers in
Africa and 14 percent of managers in the print media. In Latin America, the
figures are 21 percent for broadcasting and 16 percent for print. No Progress
or No Room at the Top, a recent report from the Annenberg Public Policy
Center, found that in the United States women are only 13 percent of the top
executives of media, telecom and e-companies and only nine percent of their
boards of directors.
The reality underscored by these numbers is that men decide which stories warrant
top-of-the news and front-page coverage, who will be quoted and which photographs
will be used to illustrate stories.
In March 2000, the IWMF polled international women leaders in the media. A significant
majority - 92 percent - who responded to the informal survey agreed that women
bring a different, more "human" perspective to the news. Women journalists
from six continents also said that their presence in the news business makes
a difference, at least some of the time, in how the news is covered.
Will Women Change the News Media? gives voice to women journalists to share their vision for a more "human" newsroom. As a senior editor from the Philippines said: "Men tend to concentrate on quotes from government officials and focus on conflicts, while women tend to look at impact on the greatest number of people or sectors."
A former senior editor with National Public Radio in the United States said
that since women have made strides in the media, there are more "issues
that are covered more [frequently] and better and we shouldn't underestimate
the impact."
Ruthie Blum, editor of Israel's Jerusalem Post Magazine, said, "The
biggest difference between men and women as editors and journalists is that
women seem to consider the reader."
Will these women journalists be able to change the future of the media? While
the debate is still open, Will Women Change the News Media? concludes
that most women journalists feel that they can and will influence their profession,
but first they have to reach a critical mass in decision-making positions in
the media. The IWMF's role in this transformation will be to do further research
and to create training programs so that women journalists can break through
journalism's glass ceiling and change the news media.