Still Talking About It: ‘Where Are the Women?’

Some facts, according to a recent Women’s Media Center study:

* At the nation’s 10 most widely circulated newspapers, men had 63 percent of the bylines, nearly two for every one for a woman. (The study looked at bylines only in the first section of the papers.)

* Among those papers, The Times had the biggest gender gap – with 69 percent of bylines going to men.

* Women are far more likely to cover health and lifestyle news. They’re less likely to cover crime, justice and world politics.

* At three major papers, including The Times, and four newspaper syndicates, male opinion-page writers outnumber female writers four to one.

After three decades in journalism, I find it hard to believe that – while things have changed radically in some ways – there’s still such a gender imbalance. At the International Journalism Festival in Italy earlier this month, I was part of a panel called “Where Are the Women?” Sitting there, discussing the paucity of women in journalism leadership globally I had a surreal feeling: Are we really still talking about this?

Separately, Philip N. Cohen, a sociology professor at the University of Maryland, has done an interesting analysis of gender and bylines for 30,000 recent New York Times articles.

Back in the office last week, I chatted with Janet Elder, a deputy managing editor, about the Women’s Media Center report, what the numbers mean and how much things have changed for women in journalism. Ms. Elder, the second-highest-ranking female editor in the newsroom after Jill Abramson, the executive editor, told me that while there’s still plenty of room for improvement, the culture of The Times is much different now.

“There’s been a pretty dramatic change,” she said. She recalled a time about 20 years ago when she was in meetings with, perhaps, 25 men and two women.

These days, not only is the top editor a woman – the first — but many department heads and section editors are, too. The Washington bureau chief is Carolyn Ryan; the culture editor is Danielle Mattoon; the national editor is Alison Mitchell; the book review editor is Pamela Paul. And of the 10 top-ranking editors at The Times, five are women. In addition to Ms. Elder and Ms. Abramson, they are Susan Chira, Rebecca Corbett, and Michele McNally.

“Women are running things – that’s an accepted part of the culture,” Ms. Elder said. “It’s not ‘wow, there’s a woman in the meeting,’ anymore.”

She’s right. So why the gap in those who gather and write the news – and does it matter to The Times?

“We’re acutely aware,” Ms. Elder said. “It’s a problem here and it’s an industry-wide problem.” At The Times, she said, about a third of the roughly 400 reporters are women.

Through hiring and promotion, The Times “has moved the needle a little bit,” she said. Now, she said, more than 50 percent of the web producers and copy editors are women. “That’s definitely a change.”

Ms. Elder noted that part of the problem is an undeniable societal fact: “Women still bear the lion’s share of responsibility for children, family and households.”

“The structure and demands of the job” don’t always mesh with those personal responsibilities, she said. “You don’t have control over your life” in many of journalism’s front-line jobs.  Ms. Elder’s son is now in college, but she told me that if he were younger, she would not have been able to, and wouldn’t have wanted to, do her current job, which often involves 12-hour days.

In a real change from 30 or 40 years ago, some foreign reporting posts are held not only by women, she said, but by mothers of young children. Jodi Rudoren, the Jerusalem bureau chief, and Anne Barnard, the Beirut bureau chief, are two current examples, and there have been many others since the 1990s.

Does it really matter who writes the stories, and who makes the decisions about deploying resources and presenting news? Yes, I think it does.

Here’s one small example of why: Women who write are more likely, according to the study, to quote at least some women in their articles. That diversity of outlook, with its range of voices, is worth pursuing because it better reflects the world. Or how about the number of women in Times obituaries? The poet and feminist Lynn Melnick complained on Twitter last week that only seven of the past 66 obituaries were on women. (My count yielded similar numbers.) Obituaries are chosen on the basis of the newsworthiness of their subjects; but that is subjective. It’s not outrageous to wonder what might change if more women were involved in all aspects of their selection and presentation.

I’m hoping that someday, the idea of discussing “where are the women?” in journalism will seem completely unnecessary. But we’re not there yet.