Each year, the Women’s Media Center researches the latest data to report how women are represented in the media, as well as how many women actually work in the media. Here are a few data points worth pondering:
• By a nearly 3-to-1 margin, male front-page bylines at top newspapers outnumbered female bylines in coverage of the 2012 presidential election. Men were also far more likely to be quoted than women in newspapers, television and public radio.
• On Sunday TV talk shows, women comprised only 14 percent of those interviewed and 29 percent of roundtable guests.
• Talk-radio hosts are overwhelmingly male.
• As newspaper employment continues to tumble, so does the number of women in key jobs.
• Newer, online-only news sites have fallen into the same rut as legacy media. Male bylines outnumbered female bylines, four out of six.
• The percentage of women who are television news directors edged up, reaching 30 percent for the first time. Overall employment of women in TV news remains flat.
Lapham’s "Old Masters" is arguably more than a magnificent photo essay that celebrates the old and accomplished in America. A longer article accompanies the pictorial essay of top masters.
In a waltz through history, Lapham makes eloquent references to many old masters, from the Greek classics (Sophocles) to mythology (the druid Merlyn who taught a lesson to the young prince Arthur). Brief mentions that are reminiscent of obituaries are made about great artists like Claude Monet and Michelangelo. Daring not to be West-centric, he casts a wide net to Asia and reels in the 19th-century Japanese artist Hokusai.
Interestingly enough, according to data from the Women’s Media Center, even obituaries about men far outnumber those of women in top national and regional newspapers. It is as if only men die successfully enough to be written up in the legacy press or by Mr. Lapham. Upon Further examination of the numbers in Lapham’s ancillary essay, the boys are heavily favored 19 to 2.
Gloria Steinem once said the purpose of the Women’s Media Center was to gain parity for women in the media to the extent that the Center would no longer be needed. If you look at the numbers, women still have a long way to go.
And it is worth mentioning that during the Women’s Media Center Awards Gala on Oct. 29 in New York City, the extraordinary broadcast journalist Barbara Walters was given a lifetime achievement award. Walters is 85.
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