Leading in a Different Language: Will Women Change the News Media?
The News Media

If there are "six seats at the [management] table, and five of them are held by men, and one is held by a woman, every other woman in the organization thinks there is one seat open. There isn't There are six seats open...We pit oursevles against each other because we only see that one seat."
Gail Evans, Executive Vice President, CNN

If there was ever any doubt about the power of the press, consider the experiences of Peruvian journalist Cecilia Valenzuela. In the last decade, Valenzuela has been arrested, fired from several jobs and has received countless death threats, some from her own government.

Valenzuela's offense has been her steadfast reports on politics and the military in her country. Most recently, in September 2000, the 1993 IWMF Courage in Journalism Award winner published a report charging the Peruvian national intelligence service with trafficking in drugs and weapons. Her reward for careful investigative reporting was a physical assault.

Valenzuela has become a lightning rod because her reports are substantial, documented and, most important, have the power to sway public opinion.

Still, she is not the only reporter to suffer reprisals for telling the truth. And though many editors stand behind crusading reporters, others -- including some who fired Valenzuela in an effort to silence her -- are controlling the news.

Though this may be a stark example of the power that media leaders have to shape the news, it is still instructive. Whoever controls assignments, whoever decides how a story is going to be covered, whoever decides what placement that story gets in a newspaper or over the airwaves, is not only shaping content of news, but is deciding what readers and listeners know and how they know it. Media leaders are not just industry leaders, they have the power to shape society's attitudes.

And in most newsrooms around the world, most media leaders are men. Though women are more than half the world's population, men routinely decide what news they should hear and read. What is the impact on women when the news is constantly reported from a male point of view?

For the past 10 years, the International Women's Media Foundation has conducted conferences, seminars and workshops around the world with a mission to strengthen the role of women in the news media based on the belief that no press is truly free unless women share an equal voice. Working to enhance and support the role of women in the media, IWMF programs equip women journalists with the tools they need to advance in their careers.

To explore what happens in the news when women are absent from decision-making positions, the IWMF brought together 100 of the top women in the news media from 60 countries in May 2000. The forum also provided the opportunity for discussions on the status of women in the media, the role of women as media leaders and the potential of women managers to influence news content and news audiences.