Study: Men Continue To Dominate News Bylines

Data from a new report by the Women’s Media Center on the state of women in U.S. media are sobering. While there are more women than men in journalism programs and colleges, they represent just 41.7% of newsroom employees.

“The media is in a state of great disruption, but despite all the change, one thing remains the same: fewer women report the news than men,” Julie Burton, WMC president, writes in the foreword of the nearly 200-page report, called “The Status of Women in the U.S. Media 2019.”

Founded in 2005 by Jane Fonda, Robin Morgan and Gloria Steinem, the WMC is a feminist organization that “works to ensure women’s realities are covered and women’s voices are heard.”

The data for the new report was collected between September and November 2017.

Source: Radio-TV Digital News Association

Highlights include:

• A record number of women are working in TV news, including as news directors; but fewer women and people of color are employed in radio news, according to the Radio Television Digital Association.
• Women owned 7.4 percent of the nation’s commercial TV stations, according to the federal government’s most recent tally.
• Women were general managers of 17.4 percent of the nation’s AM and FM stations, according to Mentoring Inspiring Women in Radio.
• Women were general managers at roughly one-fifth of almost 2,000 of the nation’s AM and FM radio stations
• More precisely, women comprised 18.1 percent of general managers at 1,974 stations as of Dec. 31, 2017. In 2016, the figure was 17.8 percent and, in 2004, it was 14.9 percent, according to the women’s radio group,
• In the top 100 radio markets, 18.5 percent of general managers were female in 2017, up slightly from17.7 percent in 2016.
• The tally of female managers in radio continued to be highest in the stations’ sales divisions. In 2017, 31.9 percent of stations had a female sales manager; that was a half-percentage point higher than in 2016.
• In the top 100 radio markets, 32.7 percent of stations had female sales managers in 2017 and, in 2016, 31.7 percent had female sales managers.
• Of all groups of radio managers, women were the least likely to be program directors: Females occupied that position at 10.5 percent of stations, the same rate for each of the last 11 years.
• At the top 100 radio stations, 11.7 percent of program directors were female in 2017, a rate down slightly from 2016.
• Mentoring and Inspiring Women in Radio cautioned that its data might be limited because it’s based on what radio stations report to PrecisionTrak.