Fight Fair: Top Women Journalists Take on Media Equity Urgency With Hope
Take The Lead’s recent panel on equity in journalism with women challenging age and gender discrimination in media (L to R clockwise) Roma Torre, Charreah K. Jackson, Kristen Shaughnessy, Amanda Farinacci, Mira Lowe and Vivian Lee.
“It is one thing to have a dream, it is another thing to have the opportunity to do that dream,” says Charreah K. Jackson, author, award-winning journalist and Take The Lead 50 Women Can Change the World in Journalism graduate and facilitator.
“@Takeleadwomen hosted a recent panel on #equity in #journalism with women challenging age and gender discrimination in media, with @RomeTorreNYC, @Charreah, @Kshaughnessy2, @Amanda_farinacci, @Miralowe and @IAmVivLee. ”
Leading the recent virtual discussion, “Take The Lead Presents: Equity for Women in Journalism,” Jackson and four veteran award-winning broadcast journalists plus Mira Lowe, president of Journalism & Women Symposium, tackle the shifting nature of journalism, opportunities for women, ongoing challenges of discrimination and the urgency to fight for fair gender identity and racial equality and representation in media newsrooms.
Read more in Take The Lead on 50 Women in Journalism
Lowe, assistant dean for student experiences at the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications, director of Innovation News Center, and former CNN senior editor, says JAWS partners on this event because the organization’s purpose is to “challenge the status quo of normalizing the discrimination against women.”
“@Miralowe, assistant dean for student experiences at the @UFJSchool says @womenjournos partners with @takeleadwomen on this event because the organization’s purpose is to “challenge the status quo of normalizing the #discrimination against #women.””
Panelists Roma Torre, Amanda Farinacci, Vivian Lee and Kristen Shaughnessy address ageism and discrimination in media and specifically broadcast media, as all four panelists (along with Jeanine Ramirez) in 2019 filed an age and gender discrimination lawsuit against their employer, NY1’s parent company, Charter Communications.
The anchorwomen settled the suit in 2020 and left the station where the five had worked a collective century, with this plaintiff statement as reported in the New York Times, “After engaging in a lengthy dialogue with NY1, we believe it is in everyone’s interest — ours, NY1’s and our viewers’ — that this litigation be resolved, and we have mutually agreed to part ways.”
“I’ve seen it happen way too often, when women get to a certain age, they have a shelf life,” says Torre, who was an anchor and lead news presenter at NY1 for 28 years, receiving more than 30 broadcasting awards including two Emmy awards.
It is an issue of power, Torre says. “Men get to take over and women have to leave.”
““I’ve seen it happen way too often, when women get to a certain age, they have a shelf life,” says @RomeTorreNYC. “It is an issue of #power. Men take over and women have to leave.” #journalism #equity”
Read more in Take The Lead on issues facing women in journalism
Farinacci, with more than 20 years in journalism reporting award-winning stories from 9/11 to COVID-19, says her desire to be a journalist was not relocated to a single lightbulb moment. Rather, she says, she felt at home telling stories of people she interviewed, particularly those whose voices were not often heard.
“When you feel that kind of passion, that shapes the way you tell their stories.”
The under-representation of a multiplicity of voices as sources and in the newsroom is a chronic and ongoing problem in all media platforms.
The most recent 2018 survey by the American Society of News Editors, finds woeful underrepresentation of women, particularly BIPOC women. Just 31% of all newsroom employees on both print and digital sides are white women; 3.62% are Black women; 3.22% Latina; 3.62% Asian women; .21% identify as American Indian, and .08% are Hawaiian, Pacific Islander women.
“The under-representation of a multiplicity of voices as sources and in the #newsroom is a chronic and ongoing problem in media. The most recent 2018 survey by the American Society of News Editors finds woeful #underrepresentation of women, particularly #BIPOC women.”
For newsroom leaders, 84.42% are white, and 17.5% include five more identity descriptions. There are zero women in leadership positions who are Hawaiian/ Pacific Islander, with only .29% American Indian women as leaders; 2.25% Asian women leaders; 2.74% Latina leaders; 3.3% Black women leading and 33% white women leading.
“Women reporters are only responsible for 37% of all news stories. When women have a seat at the table they are more likely to advocate for other women,” reports Global Citizen concerning the “Global Media Monitoring Project in 2015, the largest study on the portrayal, participation, and representation of women in the news media spanning 20 years and 114 countries.”
““Women reporters are only responsible for 37% of all news stories. When women have a seat at the table they are more likely to advocate for other women,” reports @GlblCtzn. #female #journalism #representation”
Global Citizen adds, “A lack of representation in newsrooms and media companies means that women receive fewer opportunities to share the stories of other women and the issues that impact their lives. Women journalists are also twice as likely to challenge gender stereotypes in their reporting than male journalists.”
Read more in Take The Lead on Women Do News
Lee, an Emmy-winning TV journalist for 25 years in the U.S. and Canada, including as an anchor with NY1 from 2008 to 2020, says it is critical to understand that who is in charge affects the stories that are told.
“When you see how policy gets handed down and affects reporting, you know it is not about the number of women you have, it’s about what they are doing,” says Lee.
Lee also says the discussions in newsrooms around work/life balance are specifically gendered and need not be, especially as these time challenges have been upended by COVID-19 concerns.
““When you see how policy gets handed down and affects reporting, you know it is not about the number of women you have, it’s about what they are doing,” says @IAmVivLee. #newsroom #discrimination”
“The notion that flex shifts are what only women want” is absurd, Lee says. “The idea of paying lip service to equality of work needs to be challenged. But it takes generations to work on real systemic change.”
Read more in Take The Lead on women journalists framing history
Shaughnessy, an anchor/reporter at NY1 for 26 years, says making those changes requires everyone to “keep pounding the drum.” She adds, “Until you change the top, things are not going to change. You need a diversity of thought at the top, as well as diversity of lived experiences and genders.”
“@Kshaughnessy2, an anchor/reporter at NY1 for 26 years, says making systemic change requires everyone to “keep pounding the drum.” She adds, “Until you change the top, things are not going to change.” #diversity #inclusion”
Recent top appointments in media leadership point perhaps to a burgeoning shift in media toward diversity, equity and inclusion—at long last.
Kimberly Godwin recently became “president of ABC News, overseeing editorial and business operations for broadcast, digital, streaming and audio news across the organization which includes trusted and iconic franchises ‘Good Morning America,’ ‘World News Tonight,’ ‘20/20,’ ‘Nightline,’ ‘FiveThirtyEight,’ ‘The View’ and ‘This Week,’” according to her Linked In profile.
She is the first Black woman to have this top spot. Also earlier this year, Rashida Jones took over as president of MSNBC, the first time a Black woman holds this post, according to Forbes.
When Susan Zirinsky stepped down as CBS News President and senior executive producer of CBS News, she was replaced in May of this year by co-presidents and co-directors Nareej Khemlani and Wendy McMahon.
Other top key positions in news media were filled by women in 2021, including Alessandra Galloni named as editor in chief at Reuters, a first in the company’s 170 years. Holding coveted EIC spots are Danielle Belton at Huffington Post, Swati Sharma at Vox and Mary Margaret at Entertainment Weekly.
Sally Buzbee was named executive editor of the Washington Post. Patricia Mays was named executive editor of news for The Hollywood Reporter and Monica Richardson was named executive editor of the Miami Herald; both are Black women. Daisy Veerasingham recently was named president and chief executive officer of Associated Press, “the first woman and the first person of color to lead the 175-year-old news agency,” according to the New York Times.
This spring Maria Douglas Reeve earned the slot of executive editor of the Houston Chronicle and Katrice Hardy was named executive editor of the Dallas Morning News. “For two Black women to be named to top editor positions at the two largest newspapers in Texas in the same week was both historic and groundbreaking. It’s the first time that either of the big-city metros has been led by an African American,” The Undefeated reports.
“My immediate reaction was this should have happened a long time ago,” Pam McAllister Johnson, a retired Western Kentucky University journalism professor and the first Black female publisher of a mainstream daily newspaper at Gannett’s Ithaca Journal in 1982, tells The Undefeated. “Look at their credentials. I’ll bet that they had better credentials than the people who previously had been in those positions. They earned that, over and over again. This could have been done 10 years ago.”
The good news is equity is a goal in journalism and changes are happening. The bad news, according to Global Citizen is, “If gender equality in society mirrors gender equality in the news, it will take at least three-quarters of a century to reach gender parity.”
Still, many veteran and early career journalists identifying as woman are hopeful about the shifts, however slow in arrival.
“It is about a notion of power,” says Torre. “Our time has come to be heard and represented. We have an opportunity to leverage that power.”
““It is about a notion of power,” says @RomeTorreNYC. “Our time has come to be heard and represented. We have an opportunity to leverage that power.” #womeninjournalism #equality #powertools”
Noting that these shifts are occurring before, during, after and as a second surge of COVID-19 hits, Jackson adds a note of timeliness. “Courage is even more contagious.”
