There’s a Lack of Diversity in News Media, But Where Does It Stem From?
Author: Anita Sthankiya
The news media is currently living in a “bubble,” equipped with a plethora of problems running much deeper than any one news source.
This systemic issue is of major concern, and it spreads across various media platforms, affecting all forms of diversity: gender, ethnic, racial, ideological, ability, economic, and geographic.
This article is the third in a three-part series that dissects the biases in news media, and the resulting consequences of those biases. In part one, I explored the racial biases in so-called “cultural blunders.” In part two I evaluated the lack of gender diversity in news media. In this article, I will discuss the source of where news is derived from, and who is responsible for disseminating information to media outlets.
In the United States, there are two main newswires supplying content to subscribers throughout the world: Reuters and the Associated Press. According to The fifth annual Status of Women in the U.S. Media report, by the Women’s Media Centre (WMC), at both services, slightly more than one-third of bylines go to women.
According to the report, at Reuters, 61.1 percent of bylines go to men and 38.9 percent to women. At the Associated Press, 64.4 percent to men, and 35.4 percent to women. Having this uneven gender balance can skew perceptions, as women’s issues are being covered by men. The authors of the report analyzed topical issues being covered in the United States, such as reproductive issues, and found that men were mainly quoted.
Women penned 37 percent of bylined news articles and opinion pieces regarding reproductive rights and related issues in the nation’s 12 most widely circulated newspapers and newswires, according to research from the Women’s Media Center. Men authored 52 percent of articles with bylines, whereas no bylines appeared on 11 percent of those 1,385 articles analyzed by researchers.
“When it comes to stories about abortion rights and contraception access, women’s voices are systematically stifled as writers and as sources,” said Julie Burton, WMC president.
Female journalists quoted women more often than their male counterparts. Female journalists also relied on female sources in 42 percent of quotes, and male sources in 36 percent of quotes. Male journalists quoted female sources in just 27 percent of quotes, while 48 percent of the quotes were from male sources.
Interestingly enough, not a single publication had female journalists writing more than half of its articles on reproductive issues, found the WMC. Women’s reproductive issues weren’t the only topic covered by male reporters, as the WMC study found that male reporters covered most campus rape stories. Moreover, male reporters were also found to spotlight alleged perpetrators more often than alleged victims.
A year-long Women’s Media Center study on news coverage regarding campus rape and sexual assault — federal data found that 91 percent of reported rape and sexual assault victims are female — stated that male reporters were more likely to cover such cases, and were more likely to publish quotes about the impact of rape on the alleged perpetrator, rather than on the alleged victim.
The report examined 940 news articles, as well as guest and staff editorials, about cases of sexual violence in high schools and colleges. The pieces were published in the nation’s 12 largest newspapers between Sept. 1, 2014, and Aug. 31, 2015.
Women wrote 31 percent of stories on sexual assault. Men wrote 55 percent of stories on sexual assault.
The remaining 14 percent of articles, and/or opinion pieces, that were published had no byline attached. Just 28 percent of the quotes in stories written by men were sourced from women (and 54 percent were from men), while in the female-authored stories, 42 percent of quotes were attributed to women (and 38 percent to men).
Researchers found that male journalists were more likely to focus on how pending charges would hinder the reputation of alleged rapists, rather than the victims themselves. The problem here is that the focus has shifted from the inherent issue of rape culture, to the subsequent consequences of the alleged crime on the rapist’s life.
Whereas, the focus should always remain on the act of rape itself, and the victim of this horrendous act.
“This study is a chance for U.S. media to take a hard look at where they stand on this kind of reporting and figure out how they plan to move forward in a more equitable way,” said Burton.
Of course, women aren’t the only group to be misrepresented in the media, the two largest racial/ethnic minority groups in the United States — African Americans and Hispanics — also face challenges when it comes to representation in news media.
According to the Pew Research Center, the number of black journalists working at U.S. daily newspapers has dropped 40 percent since 1997. The ranks of Hispanic and Asian journalists has also declined in the last 20 years, though not as steeply.
According to a report by The Atlantic, in 2014 all minority groups accounted for 22.4 percent of television journalists, 13 percent of radio journalists, and 13.34 percent of journalists at daily newspapers.
“Pretty pathetic, considering the fact that minorities make up 37.4 percent of the U.S. population. But walk into most major newsrooms in the U.S. and you’ll be overwhelmed by the whiteness and maleness of the editorial staff,” said The Atlantic author Gillian White.
An analysis published in the Columbia Journalism Review addressed the question of why there are so few minorities in mainstream media. Minorities made up 21.4 percent of graduates with degrees in journalism or communications between 2004 and 2014, but less than half of minority graduates found full-time jobs, while two-thirds of white graduates did.
The lack of diversity isn’t just a problem for aspiring journalists, it’s bad for everyone including news organizations and audiences. When minorities are not given the opportunity to work in the news, they lose the ability to represent and empower their communities.
This sentiment is echoed by White:
“When minorities are left out that can lead to news coverage that is incomplete, tone-deaf, or biased. Those possibilities are especially troubling as the country’s complex and often ugly relationships among people of different races, cultures, ethnicities, and religions are pushed to the forefront of the American conscience.”
The systemic lack of diversity in newsrooms can result in inflammatory statements and headlines that push racial divides further apart. News organizations need to do a better job at striving for authentic diversity, which is especially important for newswires because their stories and bylines are sent out around the world, and are heavily relied upon by both major and minor media outlets. If change can begin here, at the source, there is hope we can see a more diverse landscape in our news media sooner rather than later.
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