Women are missing as sources

A host of studies have found evidence supporting the theory of symbolic annihilation. Researchers find that women are under-used as sources, and when they are quoted, they are most often portrayed as unofficial sources or victims.

Two major studies were conducted which showed that women are largely absent in news coverage.

The Global Media Monitoring Project held its monitoring day on February 16, 2005. Trained volunteers analyzed one day’s worth of stories from 58 newspapers, 6 radio stations and 16 television stations. They found only 21 percent of people featured in the news were women. Women were most likely to be the subject of celebrity and arts news (28 percent) and least likely to be the subject of political news (14 percent). They also found that women were disproportionately portrayed as victims – 19 percent of stories compared to 8 percent for men.

Also in 2005, the Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ) conducted a broad study of the American news media and found “men are relied on as sources in the news more than twice as often as women” (The Gender Gap, 2005, ¶2). They found that newspapers were the most likely to cite at least one woman in a story (41 percent stories), and cable news was least likely to use female sources (19 percent of stories).

This chart, created by PEJ, shows their findings on the number of male and female sources in the news. The study examined “16,800 news stories across 45 different news outlets during 20 randomly selected days over nine months” (The Gender Gap, 2005, ¶3).

Three studies which specifically focused on newspapers also found women were less likely to be used as a source.

Brown, Bybee, Wearden and Straughan (1987) analyzed 846 front-page stories from The Washington Post, The New York Times and four North Carolina newspapers and found that women only represented 10 percent of the sources identifiable by gender. Similarly, Armstrong’s (2004) analysis of 18 newspapers found men were mentioned three times as often as women. He also found that when women did appear in stories they generally appeared after a male source.

Zoch and Turk (1998 ) studied a sample of 10 years worth of stories from three Southern newspapers and found that 68 percent of sources were men. They also found that female sources were quoted more briefly and quoted in shorter stories than men.

Two studies examining television news further confirmed that women are under-used as sources.

Rakow and Kranich (1991) studied the evening broadcasts of CBS, NBC and ABC from July 1986 and found only 15 percent of the 1,203 news stories used women as sources. Of these women, about half appeared as unofficial sources and they were most often referred to as mothers or victims.

Taking into consideration the popularity of TV newsmagazine programs, Grabe, Zhou and Barnett (1999) examined the sources used in roughly 300 stories aired during 60 Minutes and Hard Copy. They found that across the shows, men accounted for 69 percent of all sources, however they found that Hard Copy was more likely to quote women (42.2 percent of stories) than 60 Minutes (22.5 percent of stories).

One argument made to explain the under-use of female sources is that journalists use male and female sources in proportion to the number of men and women who hold the government, professional and management positions most likely to be quoted in the media. However, Armstrong (2006) specifically examined the use and gender of these specific types of sources in 31 newspapers and found that even when “both men and women are in the same profession or position, men are still more likely to be chosen as sources” (p. 77).

One study did find an exception to the under-representation of women. Armstrong (2002) analyzed one week of content from 18 newspapers some which had ethnically diverse communities or a high percentages of black, Hispanic or Pacific Island residents. He found that newspapers in those communities were more likely to give attention and emphasis to women in their coverage than newspapers in more homogeneous communities.

It is clear from this evidence that the news media consistently uses more male sources than female sources. Although Armstrong (2002) found one example of communities where the trend is starting to be reversed, a broad cross-section of news reporting fails to utilize women for expert commentary, and has a tendency to stereotype women as victims.

References

Armstrong, C. L. (2002). Papers give women more attention in ethnically diverse communities. Newspaper Research Journal, 23(4), 81-85.

Armstrong, C. L. (2004). The influence of reporter gender on source selection in newspaper stories. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 81(1), 139-154.

Armstrong, C. L. (2006). Story genre influences whether women are sources. Newspaper Research Journal, 27(3), 66-81.

Brown, J. D., Bybee, C. R., Wearden, S. T., & Straughan, D. M. (1987). Invisible power: Newspaper news sources and the limits of diversity. Journalism Quarterly, 64(1), 45-51.

Cann, D. J., & Mohr, P. B. (2001). Journalist and source gender in Australian television news. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 45(1), 162-174.

Global Media Monitoring Project. (2005). Who makes the news? Retrieved March 9, 2008, from http://www.whomakesthenews.org/who_makes_the_news/report_2005

Project for Excellence in Journalism. (2005). The gender gap: Women are still missing as sources for journalists. Retrieved March 9, 2008, from http://www.journalism.org/node/141

Grabe, M. E., Zhou, S., & Barnett, B. (1999). Sourcing and reporting in news magazine programs: 60 Minutes versus Hard Copy. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 76(2), 293-311.

Rakow, L. F., & Kranich, K. (1991). Woman as sign in television news. Journal of Communication, 41(1), 8-23.

Zoch, L. M., & Turk, J. V. (1998). Women making news: Gender as a variable in source selection and use. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 75(4), 762-775.

Women are more likely to quote women

Reporters seek sources who are accessible (Armstrong, 2004). They use personal judgment to determine whether or not to select an individual as source and they want their sources to be “prominent, knowledgeable and credible” (Powers & Fico, 1994, p. 88). Though they may want to strive for diversity in their sources, they face tight deadlines and often use the first source they reach. Despite the ever-present time pressures, studies suggest that women are more likely to quote women.

Armstrong (2004) analyzed one week of content from the first four sections of 18 newspapers from across the United States. He found “female writers were more likely to write about women and showcase women in news coverage” (p. 149).

Zoch and Turk (1998 ) analyzed a random sample of 1,126 stories from the Charlotte Observer, South Carolina’s State and the Augusta Chronicle. They also found that female reporters used more female sources. In stories which carried a female byline 26.5 percent of the sources were women, while in male bylined stories only 18.9 percent of sources were women. Additionally, Rodgers and Thorson (2003) found “that female reporters used more female sources (24 percent) than male reporters did (16 percent)” (p. 664) when they analyzed 21 issues from three different newspapers.

An analysis of TV newsmagazines also found female journalists were more likely to quote women than their male colleagues. Grabe, Zhou and Barnett (1999) said that stories by female reporters for the programs 60 Minutes and Hard Copy used female sources 38.3 percent of the time, while their male colleagues used female sources only 27.6 percent of the time.

Leibler and Smith’s (1997) found a similar pattern to the above studies when they analyzed stories broadcast on ABC, CBS, CNN and NBC, but none of their findings reached statistical significance. In the 159 stories they reviewed, they found that women used 4.5 male sources for every female source while their male counterparts used 5.5 men for every woman. They also found “female reporters were slightly more likely to allocate the first source position in a story to a woman” (p. 61).

Taken together these studies show that female journalists, while still quoting more men than women, are more likely to quote women than their male colleagues. This gives some weight to the argument that more women in the profession of journalism will lead to more women appearing in news coverage.

Armstrong (2004) speculated that the difference in source use may be partly due to the type of stories that women are assigned to cover. Traditionally more women have been assigned to write features and cover social issues than men. He also suggested that journalist’s sources may reflect their networks of associates and that may be why women are more likely to have female contacts. The next step is for researchers to conduct observational studies to help illuminate the reasons why women seem more likely to quote women.

References

Armstrong, C. L. (2004). The influence of reporter gender on source selection in newspaper stories. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 81(1), 139-154.

Grabe, M. E., Zhou, S., & Barnett, B. (1999). Sourcing and reporting in news magazine programs: 60 Minutes versus Hard Copy. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 76(2), 293-311.

Leibler, C. M., & Smith, S. J. (1997). Tracking gender differences: A comparative analysis of network correspondents and their sources. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 41(1), 58-68.

Powers, A., & Fico, F. (1994). Influences on the use of sources at large U.S. newspapers. Newspaper Research Journal, 15(4), 87-97.

Rodgers, S., & Thorson, E. (2003). A socialization perspective on male and female reporting. Journal of Communication, 53(4), 658-675.

Zoch, L. M., & Turk, J. V. (1998). Women making news: Gender as a variable in source selection and use. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 75(4), 762-775.