The International Women's Media Foundation released today the results of a two-year study of 500 companies, in which they found that women make up only a third of the professionals in news-gathering operations around the world. (It didn't include magazines, since staffing works differently at magazines than it does at, say, newspapers.)
The good news is that women have increased their presence, and they make up nearly 41 percent of senior staff jobs like editing (but make up only 27 percent of the top management jobs.) As Ann Friedman, formerly our editor, wrote last month, editors too often try to blame this on a supply-side problem; there just aren't enough women out there willing to risk the uncertain lifestyle becoming a writer requires, they say. That inspired Ann to start a Tumblr called Lady Journos to show them how wrong they are about that.
Of course, there are plenty of women going into journalism. Women have dominated American Journalism schools now for years. Something happens when they enter the workforce and, since I've spent some of my career in the types of newspapers where huge staffs vie for the spots surveyed by the IWMF, I think I know what part of it is. Whether you're a reporter, photographer, or editor, you need real chops to get respect. That means hustle. Newspaper editors still really use old-timey words like that, but I've divined their true meaning: They're shorthand for being a dude. Men don't dutifully forgo low-level duties and try to work their way up by performing the tasks asked of them; they take "initiative." Men don't kowtow to editorial swagger; they respond with some attitude of their own. Men don't agonize over their copy: They're just right. At least, those are the stereotypes, and they're pretty inescapable.
In theory, women can take initiative and respond to their bosses with confidence, but we all know the fine line women have to walk to make sure they're in the “acceptable personality range,” as one female MIT professor put it in a recent New York Times story. Women who did make it to the top in the newsrooms I've worked in? Well, I could tell you what kind of reputation they have, but it wouldn't be decent.
