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 in the business section

The business section was long considered a traditional male bastion of the newspaper. However, women have steadily risen to positions of power in major U.S. corporations. This increase in the female management and female spokesperson population should have led to newspapers increasingly seeking female sources, but two studies found this is not the case.

Greenwald (1990) examined the business sections of the Columbus, Ohio Dispatch and the Louisville Courier-Journal and found women were underrepresented as subjects and sources. Of 180 articles coded in the Dispatch only one story and four briefs had women as the main subject and only 6.7 percent of stories quoted women. The Courier-Journal didn’t fare much better; while six stores and four briefs of 116 articles featured women as the subject, they also only quoted women in 6 percent of their stories.

In a similar content analysis of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Everbach (2005) found that 77.5 percent of the sources quoted in the business section were male. However, she argued that the business section was one section where women were quoted “primarily because of their positions of power and authority” (p. 18). She applauded that the women quoted were afforded the same status as the men quoted and were generally portrayed as important to the corporate world.

These two studies give clear evidence that women are not regularly sought as sources for the business section of the newspaper. Further research into the routines of business reporters would be useful to help illuminate the reasons for their absence.

References

Everbach, T. (2005). The ‘masculine’ content of a female-managed newspaper. Media Report to Women, 3(4), 14-22.

Greenwald, M. S. (1990). Gender representation in newspaper business sections. Newspaper Research Journal, 68-74.

Resources for reporters

There are lots of ways for journalists to gain female sources, but here are a few online resources that make it really easy.

She Source is probably the easiest way to gain access to female sources. Journalists are encouraged to sign up to gain access to their database of female experts available to comment on a diverse portfolio of topics.

The White House Project is a non-profit organization working to elect women to office. They can put reporters in contact with women running for office as well as politically-active and politically-knowledgeable women involved with candidates.

GuestFinder is another site which connects journalist to sources. These people might be more likely to try and discuss their latest book, but they have several women authors and experts and if they fit your topic – go for it.

Sourcing themselves

Here are a few examples of women going around the news media and using YouTube to have their voices heard.

White Haired Women for Obama

North Carolina Women for Hillary Clinton

Where are the women in political news?

Perhaps it is not surprising that studies have found women underrepresented as sources in stories about politics. This may be changing with Hillary Clinton’s campaign for president, but past campaigns don’t bode well for female candidates and their female supporters. Studies show that even when women are running for office it is more often men who are talking about their campaigns in the media. One significant consequence of under representing female sources in political coverage is that women readers may be “less likely to follow campaign news” (Freedman & Fico, 2005, p. 269). 

Here are two studies which looked at female sources in political coverage:

Freedman and Fico (2005) examined 176 articles on races for governor and they determined that the sources, both expert and non-expert, were “overwhelmingly male” (p. 265). When female experts were cited, they received less space. Male experts averaged two paragraphs, but female experts’ comments averaged less than half a paragraph. Male nonexperts were also more likely to be quoted in the first five paragraphs of a story than female nonexperts. “In two thirds of stories citing women nonexperts, their assertions first appeared below paragraph 10” (p. 267).  

Zeldes and Fico (2005) conducted a content analysis  of 333 campaign stories from the 2000 presidential election which aired on the evening newscasts of ABC, CBS and NBC.  They found “men were overrepresented as reporters and sources on network news” (p.  382) and that male sources were given longer soundbites than women. 

References 

Freedman, E., & Fico, F. (2005). Male and female sources in newspaper coverage of male and female candidates in open races for governor in 2002. Mass Communication & Society, 8(3), 257-272. 

Zeldes, G. A., & Fico, F. (2005). Race and gender: An analysis of sources and reporters in the networks’ coverage of the 2000 presidential campaign. Mass Communication & Society, 8(4), 373-385.