MEDIA MATTERS, HEAL THYSELF. The situation with regard to women at Media Matters is actually worse than Ann Friedman pointed out yesterday. If you look at the people the company has granted “fellowships” to — i.e., hired for the more creative, self-starting roles rather than for posts as company flacks or research drones — you’ll find that only one of the eight is female, for a grand total of 12.5 percent female fellows. All four “senior fellows” are male.
Is this because there are no prominent liberal female media critics interested in writing books or pursuing blogging? Absolutely not. Laura Flanders is rightly legendary, and just published a book, Blue Grit: Democrats Take Back Politics from the Politicians, while Jennifer Pozner has founded her own (under-resourced) media criticism and analysis outfit and also demonstrated an unusual ability to go on FOX News and tangle with Bill O’Reilly. I’m sure there are plenty of female bloggers who would be grateful for a salary in exchange for posting Media Matters items, as well.
Lest anyone think I’m being unfair to Media Matters, it’s worth noting that this demographic skew toward white men is a pervasive one on the left, and this magazine and others like it have hardly been immune from similar criticism. I must say, though, such facts do somewhat complicate the ability of liberal organizations to offer either demographic critiques of or believable recommendations to the MSM.
–Garance Franke-Ruta
