For much of American journalism’s history, women were seen largely as a market for news, rather than as a community to reflect in the news. One of the ways in which women gained greater entrance and influence in U.S. journalism was through cultural journalism, or the coverage of lifestyle topics such as food, art, style, music, and other forms of entertainment in the second half of the 20th century. In fact, what we currently understand to be cultural journalism can be traced directly back to the so-called women’s pages, which originally focused on the four Fs: family, fashion, food, and furnishings.
Those women’s pages covered women’s issues, which were seen as less important and were physically separated in publications from more ‘serious’ news topics. Not only did the content and the physical real estate of the coverage separate women’s pages from the rest of the paper, but the type of writing—less newsy and more personal—also distinguished them from the ‘serious’ news. Consequently, the women’s pages featured a preponderance of trend coverage and profiles. Over time, though, the women’s pages influenced the creation of less gendered and more inclusive beats of coverage, such as the Washington Post’s style section.
However, this gendered gap between news and culture still appears in modern American newsrooms. In the U.S., women journalists are more likely to write about health and lifestyle topics. In contrast, they are less likely to write about economics, politics, or sports, and are less likely to write for the opinion section.
More broadly, women are still less likely than men to be both journalists and subjects of journalism. According to a 2019 report from the American Society of News Editors, women make up roughly 42 percent of newsroom employees in the U.S., despite making up more than half of the U.S. population. According to a 2019 report by the Women’s Media Center, women journalists also only produce 37 percent of news stories. The categories of news in which women approach or achieve equity in bylines are entertainment (49 percent women), lifestyle and leisure (52 percent women), and health (58 percent women). Men dramatically outnumber women in news coverage in both text and images, with 77 percent of people mentioned in articles and 70 percent of faces pictured in news articles being male. These discrepancies suggest that the male perspective continues to dominate American news coverage, with the female voice being peripheral.
And this is despite the fact that women greatly outnumber men in journalism education. According to the Columbia Journalism Review, two-thirds of people who graduate with journalism or mass communication degrees in the United States are women. As such, there are a variety of systemic factors within journalism—from broader social expectations to professional cultural values—that make it harder for women to enter (and succeed in) the professional practice.
One example of this is that there are distinct gender-based gaps in pay and hierarchy in American journalism—much as there are in U.S. society at large. Those gaps intersect with other factors, such as race and ethnicity. For example, white male journalists at the Associated Press earn an average of $15,000 more than black female journalists. Similarly, female employees of the Washington Post earn 86 cents for every dollar white male employees earn. In light of the already relatively low average salary in U.S. journalism, these obstacles can make it impossible for many women to enter or remain in journalism—especially if they come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds.
Racial and ethnic disparity remains the largest and slowest-changing gap in American journalism, with white male journalists greatly outnumbering journalists of color. According to a 2019 report from the American Society of News Editors, people of color make up just 22 percent of newsroom employees in the U.S. This number is only slightly improved when it comes to online news outlets specifically, where journalists of color comprise almost 31 percent of employees.
Journalists of color are also less likely to hold high positions in newsrooms, with roughly 19 percent of newsroom managers being people of color. For example, according to the Columbia Journalism Review, the staffs of the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal are both 81 percent white. And the Los Angeles Times staff is 67 percent white in a city that is much more diverse. About one-fourth of television journalism employees are people of color, while only about 12 percent of audio and radio journalism jobs in the U.S. are held by people of color.
This gap is particularly striking when you consider that 40 percent of the U.S. population is not white. Moreover, the large coastal cities where U.S. journalistic outlets are disproportionately located also have more diverse racial and ethnic populations than the average American city. Yet still this gap remains. And it is exacerbated by a number of norms inherent to American journalism, such as the tendency for early-career journalists to take unpaid internships and the use of closed networks in hiring practices, as well as a lack of diversity in journalism programs in higher education.
This demographic discrepancy is not new, and it is also not secret. American journalism organizations have called for change for a number of years, and individual journalistic outlets have begun in recent years to take accounting of their own gaps in representation, both within their newsrooms and within their coverage. For example, several journalistic outlets, such as NPR, document both their employment of and their coverage of women and people of color. And in recent years, problematic issues in representation at some news outlets have led to public changes of leadership and pledges to shift hiring and coverage practices, driven by a sort of gatekeeping in which journalistic outlets identify and critique cultural violations in each other’s coverage.
However, increased attention doesn’t guarantee increased representation. Indeed, it is unclear if the recent changes are emblematic of a moment in time or a sustained trend toward greater inclusivity within journalism. Additionally, although younger U.S. newsroom employees are equally likely to be male and female—and they’re less likely to be white than their older counterparts—they are still much more likely to identify as white than with a minority racial or ethnic group.
Finally, it is important to note that the American public also recognizes these issues. According to a 2020 Gallup study, more Americans say that news media are doing poorly in reflecting U.S. diversity than say they are doing well. Additionally, approximately 69 percent of Americans believe that reflecting this diversity is either a “critical” or “very important” role of the media, though respondents are more divided when it comes to how to better fulfill that role. It is important for today’s journalists, as well as future journalists like you, to recognize and seek to improve these longstanding issues of inequity.
These demographic gaps, as well as a wide variety of others, limit the stories that are covered by American journalists by limiting the pooled lived experiences of those journalists. In a report for the Columbia Journalism Review, Gabriel Arana put it this way: “Ultimately, the value of diversity to journalism is not about skin color, gender, sexual orientation, or social class. It’s about the stories people can tell.” And American journalism misses many important stories when it doesn’t represent the population it serves.
In addition to creating gaps in coverage, this lack of representation can also lead to flawed or biased reporting practices, such as coverage that stereotypes specific communities and groups. According to schema theory, people organize knowledge into categories, or schemas, in their minds, and they retrieve these schemas when they are confronted with media messages that depict these categories. These schemas can become entangled with loaded cultural meanings that lend themselves to stereotypes. By creating and disseminating content, media outlets also rely on pre-existing schemas, or mental shortcuts, to help call up and synthesize information within the minds of their audiences. (This is psychological framework is similar to that of priming theory and associative network models of human memory.)
For example, crime coverage that features racial stereotypes can connect these stereotypes to particular groups, and then audiences retrieve these stereotypes when they consume news. According to The Marshall Project, mainstream American journalists are less likely to cover Black victims of homicide, and when they do, that coverage results in less complex, less humane portrayals.
The same system of stereotype reinforcement comes into play with coverage of other groups and identities, too. One recurring paradox that persists in news coverage of gender is that of “double binds.” Double binds over-simplify complex and dynamic people, organizations, or groups into a one-dimensional, either-or narrative. For example, one common double bind used to depict powerful women is that of femininity vs. competence—essentially the idea that competent women can’t be feminine and feminine women can’t be competent. This appears in American journalistic coverage of female political candidates like Hilary Clinton, which research shows often plays up stereotypically feminine attributes, such as motherhood and attractiveness, while de-emphasizing stereotypically masculine attributes, such as leadership.
Notably, in these examples, the journalist is often not intending to stereotype populations, oversimplify their experiences, or miss out on highly relevant story angles. Instead, the journalist is simply ignorant about important issues and ideas that are more salient to members of those communities and groups. Thus, more representative newsrooms can be an asset precisely because they allow journalists to more readily and proactively identify and address problems with coverage—or the lack thereof. This can generate not only better journalism but also increase public trust in that journalism.
Although women greatly outnumber men in American journalism higher education, men outnumber women in the profession itself. A variety of systemic factors within journalism—from broader social expectations to professional cultural values—make it harder for women to enter (and succeed in) the industry.
Online news employees are more representative than average newsroom employees when it comes to both gender and race, though such spaces are still not equitable.
Gaps in newsroom diversity are influenced by a variety of factors, including some American journalistic norms. These include the tendency for early-career journalists to take unpaid internships and the use of closed networks in hiring practices.
American journalism misses many important stories when it doesn’t represent the population it serves. In addition to creating gaps in coverage, this lack of representation can also lead to flawed or biased reporting practices, such as coverage that stereotypes specific communities and groups.