Nathan  Nye  Laura  Roselle  PubPol  202  5  December  2011    

Making  the  Front-­‐Page:  Female  Journalists  in  Places  of  Prestige      Abstract     This  research  paper  aimed  to  find  how  women  fit  into  places  of  prestige  in  

journalism  by  examining  front-­‐page  articles  and  coding  them  for  gender  and  topic  to  

determine  how  often  women  were  prominently  featured  and  if  that  corresponded  to  

a  certain  topic.  

  The  data  showed  that  men  are  more  than  twice  as  likely  to  be  the  authors  of  

articles  on  the  front  page  of  The  New  York  Times  and  The  Wall  Street  Journal.  It  also  

showed  that  women  were  more  likely  to  write  “soft”  news,  while  men  were  more  

likely  to  write  “hard”  news,  particularly  articles  that  deal  with  international  affairs.  

     Introduction       This  research  is  focused  on  the  idea  of  women  in  places  of  prestige  in  

journalism.  Considering  two  well-­‐known  papers  on  the  American  East  Coast,  The  

New  York  Times  and  Wall  Street  Journal,  this  project  will  analyze  the  frequency  with  

which  female  journalists  “make  the  front  page,”  or  essentially  are  given  the  place  of  

prestige  in  prestige  papers.  Papers  like  The  Wall  Street  Journal  and  The  New  York  

Times  are  two  of  the  most  dominant  sources  of  information  in  the  United  States.  

However,  it  is  important  to  question  if  benevolent  or  hostile  sexism  exists  in  these  

traditional  journalism  establishments.    The  goal  is  to  determine  whether  or  not  the  

glass  ceiling  found  in  other  industries  can  be  found  in  journalism.      

 

Literature  Review  

Journalists  

  In  a  study  done  to  typify  the  American  journalist,  scholars  found  that  the  

average  journalist  twenty  years  ago  was  male,  white,  Protestant,  married,  college-­‐

educated  and  in  his  30s  (Weaver  and  Wilhoit  1996).  The  research  also  showed  there  

were  strong  pockets  of  journalists  in  the  South  and  Atlantic  coast.  The  same  study  

showed  that  in  the  younger  generation  more  non-­‐white  journalists  were  appearing;  

however,  journalists  still  came  from  established  dominant  cultural  groups.  The  only  

exception  is  for  Jewish-­‐Americans  who  are  overrepresented  in  journalism.  The  same  

study  also  showed  that  racial  minorities  tend  to  work  most  in  radio  and  are  least  

likely  to  work  in  news  magazines  (Weaver  and  Wilhoit  1996).    

  Over  the  period  of  this  study  little  progress  was  made  in  the  field  of  religious  

diversity  in  journalism.  Most  journalists  were  still  Protestant,  though  some  small  

headway  was  made  in  the  None/Other  category  (Weaver  and  Wilhoit  1996).  

  Politically,  the  researchers  found  a  heavy  slant  towards  journalists  who  were  

left  of  center  politically,  though  the  extreme  right  also  gained  some  traction  by  1992.  

This  was  a  reversal  of  a  move  towards  the  center  of  politics  seen  in  previous  years  

(Weaver  and  Wilhoit  1996l).    

Finally,  they  found  that  the  only  regularly  read  publications  by  all  journalists  

were  large  east  coast  papers,  which  form  a  kind  of  “prestige  hierarchy”  (Weaver  and  

Wilhoit  1996).      

 

Women  in  the  Workplace  

  Scholars  of  gender  have  done  extensive  work  on  gender  and  the  workplace.  

Studies  have  found  multiple  factors  that  affect  both  the  amount  of  women  in  a  field  

and  the  amount  of  pay  they  receive  and  the  reasons  for  this  (Bertrand,  Goldin,  and  

Katz  2010).  .  

  Interesting  studies  have  been  done  about  the  participation  of  women  in  some  

fields  thought  to  be  male-­‐dominated  (Varma  2002).    For  instance,  a  study  on  the  

gender  gap  in  IT  showed  that  women  are  less  likely  to  go  into  IT  for  several  reasons.  

One  of  the  largest  factors  was  exposure  to  technology  from  a  young  age  (Varma  

2002).  The  study  found  that  men  were  exposed  to  technology,  such  as  video  games,  

from  an  early  age,  whereas  women  were  not  (Varma  2002).    Social  stigma  about  

fields  viewed  as  traditionally  male  or  female  were  also  important  (Varma  2002).    

Other  scholars  have  found  that  regardless  of  field  though,  there  are  levels  

and  ranks  of  industries  that  women  are  less  likely  to  infiltrate  (Bertrand,  Goldin,  and  

Katz  2010).  Only  2.  3%  of  CEO’s  of  Fortune  1500  companies  are  female  (Bertrand,  

Goldin,  and  Katz  2010).  Some  experiments  have  suggested  that  this  is  because  

women  dislike  hypercompetitive  environments  or  negotiating  for  higher  

pay(Bertrand,  Goldin,  and  Katz  2010).  One  of  the  biggest  reasons  given  is  that  

women  are  often  caring  for  children,  which  is  incompatible  with  the  high-­‐powered  

corporate  lifestyle(Bertrand,  Goldin,  and  Katz  2010).  Women  who  stay  in  the  high-­‐

powered  business  field  are  less  likely  to  have  children  and  also  less  likely  to  be  

married  than  their  male  peers  (Bertrand,  Goldin,  and  Katz  2010).  

  Women  with  MBAs  were  also  an  interesting  subsection  to  consider.  After  

graduation,  women  make  around  $115k,  while  their  male  counterparts  make  $130k;  

after  nine  years  women  make  $250k,  while  men  make    $400k  (Bertrand,  Goldin,  and  

Katz  2010).  Adjusted  for  hourly  wages,  some  researches  cite  that  in  general  women  

make  80%  of  what  men  make  (O’Neill  2003).    

  Studies  have  shown  that  women  do  not  make  less  than  their  male  

counterparts  because  of  a  lack  of  productivity  or  difference  in  skill  (O’Neill  2003).  

Brothers  and  sisters  raised  by  the  same  parents  have  similar  levels  of  achievement  

(O’Neill  2003).  However,  it  is  attributed  most  commonly  to  the  fact  that  women  

often  bear  the  responsibility  of  caring  for  children  and  housekeeping  and  are  less  

able  to  work  long  hours  (O’Neill  2003;  Gaziano  1986;  Bertrand,  Goldin,  and  Katz  

2010).  Finally,  women  often  choose  employers  and  fields  based  on  the  type  of  

employer  who  would  be  friendly  to  mothers  (O’Neill  2003).  Studies  have  shown  

generally  that  women  are  moving  into  more  “high-­‐skilled”  majors  in  college,  which  

has  deflated  the  wage  gap  to  some  extent  (Eide  1994).      

 

Women  and  Journalism  

  Scholars  say  that  women  are  declining  as  newspaper  readers  at  a  rate  even  

higher  than  men  (Bogart  1993).  Research  said  that  women  viewed  newspapers  as  

inherently  masculine.  This  is  because  most  newsrooms  are  still  male,  in  fact  2/3  

male  (Bogart  1993).  Studies  also  showed  that  in  terms  of  space  in  newspapers,  

traditionally  masculine  topics  took  up  the  most  space,  adding  to  the  women’s  

conviction  that  newspapers  were  spaces  for  men  (Bogart  1993).      

 

Women  in  Journalism  

The  same  study  that  tried  to  typify  the  American  journalist  also  showed  that  

the  amount  of  women  in  journalism  went  from  1/5  to  more  than  1/3  (Weaver  and  

Wilhoit  1996).    In  1977  the  amount  of  women  in  college  journalism  programs  

surpassed  men  for  the  first  time  (Weaver  and  Wilhoit  1996).  However,  from  1982  to  

1992,  journalists  were  no  more  likely  to  be  women  than  before  (Weaver  and  Wilhoit  

1996).    In  1989  women  were  45.2%  of  the  US  workforce,  but  between  33  and  34%  

of  the  journalistic  workforce  (Weaver  and  Wilhoit  1996).  Numbers  also  show  that  

women  do  not  stay  in  the  field  very  long,  with  significantly  fewer  women  having  

more  than  12  years  experience  when  compared  to  men  (Weaver  and  Wilhoit  1996).    

This  is  why  there  was  no  significant  increase  in  female  journalists,  even  though  

there  were  more  female  journalists,  women  left  the  business  (Weaver  and  Wilhoit  

1996).    

  Female  journalists  are  less  likely  to  be  married  than  male  journalists  (48%  v.  

65%)  (Weaver  and  Wilhoit  1996).  They  are  also  much  less  likely  to  have  any  

children  (28%  v.  44%)  (Weaver  and  Wilhoit  1996).    

  However,  women  also  gained  respect  and  responsibility  in  the  field  fairly  

quickly  with  41%  saying  they  supervised  news  and  other  journalists,  only  2%  less  

than  their  male  counterparts  (Weaver  and  Wilhoit  1996).  Women  were  found  in  

upper  management  (18%),  but  found  significantly  more  in  lower  management  

(32%),  more  so  than  their  male  counterparts  (30%)  (Weaver  and  Wilhoit  1996).    

  Women  worked  most  commonly  in  news  magazine  and  were  least  likely  to  

be  in  radio  broadcast.  There  have  also  been  several  studies  on  women  in  television  

journalism,  a  field  in  which  they  are  underrepresented.  For  many  years,  female  

anchors  were  given  stories  that  were  unserious  and  generally  less  newsworthy  

(Singleton  1982).  It  was  found  that  when  broken  down  by  topic,  female  television  

reporters  delivered  significantly  less  news  dealing  with  foreign  affairs,  economy,  

and  disaster.  Women  also  rarely  delivered  feature  stories.  Women  were  given  more  

domestic  government  stories,  social  problem  pieces,  and  “women’s  issues”  topics  

(Singleton  1982).      

  In  one  study,  female  anchors  discussed  the  perceived  obstacles  in  being  a  

female  news  anchor.  A  recurring  theme  for  them  was  that  their  physical  appearance  

was  very  important  to  their  job  and  to  their  hiring.  Anchors  also  referenced  

unwritten  gender  and  ethnic  quotas  to  fulfill  the  appearance  of  diversity  (Gaziano  

1986).  They  also  listed  not  having  a  professional  network  and  not  being  able  to  

blend  in  to  an  all-­‐male  workspace  as  negatives.    

  In  other  areas  of  journalism,  prejudice  also  remains  according  to  other  

scholars.  Sports  writers  are  still  heavily  male,  with  few  opportunities  for  women  

(Hardin  and  Shane  2005).  They  discovered  that  few  women  were  able  to  make  it  

past  the  lower  ranks  of  sports  departments  (Hardin  and  Shane  2005).  There  was  

also  a  stigma  attached  to  being  a  female  sports  writer.  While  women  who  were  in  

the  field  enjoyed  their  job,  researchers  found  that  tokenism  and  immobility  often  

drove  women  to  leave  sports  journalism  (Hardin  and  Shane  2005).  Many  were  still  

hopeful  about  the  future  of  women  in  sports  journalism  though,  and  reported  that  

they  encouraged  other  women  to  enter  into  the  field(Hardin  and  Shane  2005).    

  Researchers  have  also  examined  what  happens  when  women  do  reach  the  

upper-­‐level  in  the  newspaper  industry.  They’ve  found  that  women  in  magazines  

who  are  managers  tend  to  bunch  between  low  and  mid-­‐level  managerial  positions,  

with  only  4.5%  ever  becoming  top  managers  (Shaw  1984).  Particularly  at  the  

demanding  level  of  manager,  the  aforementioned  home  and  family  life  reenters  the  

scenario.  Scholars  found  that  women  feel  as  if  they  make  a  sacrifice  every  day  for  

their  job;  however,  only  7%  resented  the  sacrifices  they  had  to  make  (Shaw  1984).    

  Women  reported  specifically  about  the  newspaper  industry  that  it  was  no  

kid-­‐friendly  and  that  their  employers  were  unaccommodating  when  it  came  to  

questions  of  child  care  (Hardin  and  Shane  2005)  

 

Methodology  

  The  research  for  this  project  has  three  components-­‐  to  find  the  gender(s)  of  

the  reporter(s),  to  record  what  publication  it  can  be  found  in,  and  to  effectively  

determine  a  subject  category  for  each  article.      

 

The  Papers  

  The  Wall  Street  Journal  and  The  New  York  Times  were  chosen  as  the  papers  

this  study  would  use  to  mind  data.  As  major  east  coast  papers,  they  are  seen  as  the  

pinnacle  of  success  for  a  reporter  (Weaver  and  Wilhoit  1996).  As  shown  by  other  

research  women  often  have  difficulty  breaking  through  the  glass  ceiling  in  other  

fields  (Bertrand,  Goldin,  and  Katz  2010).  Some  .    A  random  number  algorithm  chose  

25  dates  from  2005  to  2010,  which  are  attached  in  the  appendix.  The  dates  also  

excluded  Saturday  and  Sunday  because  The  Wall  Street  Journal  began  to  print  

weekend  editions  after  the  start  date  of  the  study.  One  of  the  dates  chosen  was  

December  25,  2007,  on  which  The  Wall  Street  Journal  did  not  print  an  edition,  so  

only  The  New  York  Times  has  articles  for  a  single  date.  For  each  date,  the  study  

analyzed  every  full-­‐length,  non-­‐caption  article  with  a  byline  on  the  front  page.  The  

editions  used  were  the  morning  editions  in  the  microfilm  library  of  Duke  University.    

The  list  of  articles,  authors,  genders,  and  category  is  attached  in  the  appendix.    

 

The  Genders  

  Each  article  was  coded  for  writer  gender  using  female  writer,  male  writer,  

mixed  gender  group,  all  female  group,  all  male  group  as  the  available  codes.  Authors  

were  assigned  codes  based  on  general  usage  of  names  and  the  cross-­‐referencing  of  

online  profiles  when  available.  There  was  no  accounting  for  transgender  reporters.    

For  this  study,  gender  and  sex  will  be  used  interchangeably.    

 

The  Categories  

  In  order  to  determine  if  women  were  more  successful  when  writing  on  

specific  issues,  each  article  was  coded  based  on  content  into  a  single  category.    

The  categories  cover  several  specific  things,  but  also  have  broader  topics  if  an  article  

was  otherwise  unable  to  be  categorized.  Business  and  Economics  include  any  

stories  dealing  with  private  companies  or  the  economy  generally,  regardless  of  

country  concerned.  Stories  about  oil  are  also  included  here.  Columns  are  for  feature  

columnists,  regardless  of  the  topic  for  the  column.  Culture  and  Review  is  used  for  

pieces  on  arts,  music,  literature,  review,  and  cultural  trends.  Crime  was  used  for  

articles  that  focused  on  court  proceedings  that  did  not  include  political  figures  or  

the  Supreme  Court.  Domestic  Policy  and  Politics  includes  any  articles  about  local  

or  national  political  figures  and  policies.  Stories  about  political  figures  opinions  even  

if  they  are  on  another  topic  were  coded  as  politics.  This  also  includes  any  stories  

prominently  featuring  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States.  Education  covered  

stories  concerned  with  the  administration  and  practices  of  schools  and  school  

systems,  including  higher  education.  Health,  Science,  and  Technology  was  used  

for  any  story  that  dealt  with  news  about  healthcare,  medicine,  science,  or  scientists.  

Human  Interest  and  Profiles  was  used  for  stories  that  were  not  hard  news,  but  

rather  stories  about  individuals  or  groups.  This  category  also  covers  obituaries.  

International  Politics  and  Policy  focused  on  the  political  happenings  of  non-­‐US  

countries,  except  for  acts  of  war.    Religion  was  used  to  tag  any  story  prominently  

featuring  religion  as  the  main  story  element.  Sports  and  Sport  News  covered  

athletics  and  the  news  surrounding  it,  both  domestic  and  international.  War  is  

concerned  with  direct  acts  of  war,  essentially  violence,  and  it  supersedes  the  

domestic  and  international  categories.  Finally,  Domestic  News  and  International  

News  were  used  for  any  article  that  didn’t  fit  directly  in  any  of  the  other  categories.    

  In  cases  where  the  category  for  the  article  was  debatable,  the  amount  of  the  

story  devoted  to  any  category  was  the  determining  factor.  For  instance,  if  there  

were  an  article  about  possible  regulations  concerning  a  new  drug  being  developed  

in  the  US,  it  would  be  the  amount  of  space  spent  discussing  either  the  regulations  or  

the  drug  that  would  determine  if  it  were  placed  in  the  Health,  Science,  and  

Technology  or  Domestic  Policy  and  Politics.    

 

Hypotheses  

  Based  on  the  initial  findings  of  the  literature  review,  the  hypotheses  for  this  

study  are:  

1. Fewer  women  will  be  reporters  on  front-­‐page  articles  of  The  New  York  

Times  and  the  Wall  Street  Journal.    

2. Women  will  be  more  likely  to  write  articles  categorized  in  the  more  “soft  

news”  categories,  primarily  Human  Interest  and  Profile,  Health,  Science,  and  

Technology,  Culture  and  Review,  and  Religion.  Men  will  be  more  prominent  

in  what  are  generally  considered  harder  news  topics,  specifically  

International  Politics  and  Policy  and  War.  

3. The  New  York  Times,  known  as  a  more  “liberal  paper”  will  have  more  front-­‐

page  female  writers.      

 

Findings  

  The  data  used  includes  49  front-­‐pages  and  232  articles.  This  study  considers  

the  number  and  gender  of  writers  holistically,  number  and  gender  in  regard  to  

category,  and  finally  number  and  gender  on  a  paper-­‐by-­‐paper  basis.    

 

Overview  

  Each  of  the  232  articles  was  coded  for  authorship  gender,  which  feel  into  one  

of  five  categories.  Man  for  an  individual  male  reporter,  Woman  for  an  individual  

female  reporter,  All-­‐Male  Group  for  two  or  more  male  writers,  All-­‐Female  Group  

for  two  or  more  female  reporters,  and  Mixed  Gender  Group  for  two  or  more  

reporters  with  at  least  two  people  of  differing  sex.  The  numbers  showed  that  

45.7%  were  written  by  men  (individual),  21.6%  were  written  by  women  

(individual),  16.8%  by  all-­‐mall  groups,  14.2%  by  mixed  gender  groups,  1.7%  by  

all-­‐female  groups.  The  distribution  can  be  seen  in  Figure  1.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure  1  

These  findings  support  the  hypothesis  that  fewer  women  make  the  front-­‐page  of  

major  newspapers.  Excluding  the  groups  of  writers,  articles  on  the  front-­‐page  are  

more  than  twice  as  likely  to  be  written  by  men  than  women.  However,  an  

unexpected  number  was  that  of  the  All-­‐Female  groups.  It  is  by  far  the  least  occurring  

authorship  combination  with  less  than  2%  of  total  articles  written.  This  is  especially  

striking  in  contrast  with  the  All-­‐Male  groups,  which  is  more  statistically  common  

than  a  Mixed  Gender  group.    

Also,  consider  if  the  all-­‐male  and  all-­‐female  categories  are  merged  with  their  

respective  sexes.  While  the  mixed  gender  must  remain  by  itself,  that  would  mean  

that  62.5%  of  articles  were  written  by  men  and  23.3%  were  written  by  women,  with  

the  remaining  14.2%  being  written  by  a  combination  of  men  and  women.    

Women  make  up  34%  of  the  total  journalistic  workforce  (Weaver,  et  al),  but  

the  number  of  front-­‐page  articles  in  The  New  York  Times  and  the  Wall  Street  

Journal  is  significantly  lower.  This  can  most  likely  be  linked  to  earlier  studies,  which  

demonstrate  the  lack  of  women  in  high-­‐ranking  positions  in  other  fields  (Bertrand,  

Goldin,  and  Katz  2010).  Essentially,  there  is  a  difference  expected  from  broader  

research,  but  in  the  prestige  place  in  a  prestige  paper  (Weaver  and  Wilhoit  1996).  

this  study  shows  there  are  even  fewer  than  would  be  expected.  

   

 

Categories  

  In  the  14  categories  that  the  study  used,  many  did  not  achieve  numbers  to  

make  them  statistically  significant;  however,  others  offer  interesting  insight.    

Domestic  News  

  In  the  field  of  Domestic  News,  which  was  the  catchall  for  stories  in  the  US,  out  

of  17  stories,  41.2%  were  written  by  men,  29.4%,  by  women,  17.6%  by  mixed  

gender  groups,  and  11.8%  by  all-­‐male  groups  (Figure  2).  While  not  necessarily  a  

large  enough  number  to  be  indicative  of  larger  trends,  there  is  some  suggestion  that  

in  the  category  that  amounts  to  random  stories,  women  move  closer  to  men  in  

percentage  of  articles  written.  This  echoes  studies  showing  that  women  were  given  

less  newsworthy  stories  (Singleton  1982).    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure  2  

Domestic  Politics  and  Policy  

  Out  of  a  total  71  articles  involving  domestic  politics  and  policy,  47.2%  were  

authored  by  men,  16.7%  by  all-­‐mall  groups,  16.7  by  mixed  gender  groups,  15.3%  by  

women,  and  2.8%  by  all-­‐female  groups  (Figure  3).  Because  US  politics  tends  to  

garner  important  stories  for  major  US  papers,  this  number  supports  the  already  

stated  conclusion  that  men  are  given  the  more  newsworthy  stories.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure  3  

Economics  and  Business  

  In  the  Economics  and  Business  category,  which  had  41  total  articles,  31.7%  

were  authored  by  men,  17%  by  women,  26.8%  by  all-­‐male  groups,  and  26.8%  mixed  

gender  groups  (Figure  4).    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure  4  

Health,  Science,  and  Technology  

  Health,  Science  and  Technology  was  the  only  category  in  which  there  were  

more  female  reporters  than  male.  Out  of  ten  articles,  50%  were  written  by  women,  

30%  by  men,  10%  by  all-­‐female  groups,  and  10%  by  all-­‐male  groups  (Figure  5).    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure  5  

Human  Interest  and  Profile  

  Human  Interest  and  profile  had  14  stories,  of  them  64.3%  were  written  by  

men  and  42.9%  were  written  by  women  (Figure  6).  These  numbers  more  closely  

reflect  the  aforementioned  statistics  regarding  journalism  generally.    

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure  6  

International  News  

  The  idea  that  women  are  given  less  newsworthy  stories  was  reinforced  in  

International  news  with  15.8%  of  19  stories  being  written  by  women.  Men  were  

responsible  for  57.9%,  while  15.8%  were  by  all-­‐male  groups,  and  10.5%  by  mixed  

gender  groups  (Figure  7).  The  fact  that  all-­‐male  groups  have  the  same  percentage  as  

individual  women  further  demonstrates  the  point  that  women  aren’t  given  the  hard  

news  stories.    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure  7  

International  Politics  

  Of  the  26  stories  in  the  International  Politics  category,  50%  were  written  by  

men,  23%  by  all-­‐male  groups,  11.5%  by  women,  11.5%  by  mixed  gender  groups,  

and  3.8%  by  all-­‐female  groups  (Figure  8).  Studies  have  shown  that  women  often  

choose  employers  based  on  the  amount  of  convenience  it  can  provide  for  them  as  

mothers  (O’Neill  2003;  Gaziano  1986;  Bertrand,  Goldin,  and  Katz  2010).  For  both  

international  politics  and  news,  this  study  seems  particularly  relevant.  If  being  a  

parent  were  important  to  a  woman,  then  the  travel  required  working  on  

international  stories  would  be  a  major  deterrent.    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure  8  

Other  categories  

  Columns,  Crime,  Culture  &  Review,  Education,  Religion,  Sports,  and  War  all  

garnered  less  than  ten  articles,  so  I  won’t  include  the  exact  statistics,  but  there  were  

several  interesting  facts  that  emerged  in  those  small  samples.  

  There  were  two  feature  columns,  both  of  which  were  written  by  men.  

Generally,  columns  are  seen  as  places  of  prestige  for  papers,  and  as  stated  earlier,  

prestige  markets  tend  to  have  a  glass  ceiling  for  women  (Bertrand,  Goldin,  and  Katz  

2010).    

  Stories  on  religions  were  50%  written  by  men,  50%  by  women.  These  stories  

are  generally  not  hard  news  and  the  fact  that  they  were  one  of  the  few  evenly  

divided  category  is  unsurprising  given  earlier  studies  on  newsworthiness  and  

gender  (Singleton  1982).  

  The  hypothesis  that  stories  on  war  would  be  written  primarily  by  men  had  

equivocal  support.  Individual  men  wrote  57.1%  of  them,  with  42.9%  written  by  

mixed  gender  pairs.  While  no  individual  women  wrote  stories  on  warfare,  they  were  

involved  in  a  significant  portion  of  the  stories.    

  Men  wrote  both  of  the  two  sports  stories  that  were  on  the  front  page  in  the  

dates  given.  Once  again,  this  is  certainly  not  in  the  range  needed  to  support  any  

larger  trends;  however,  this  small  sample  does  correspond  with  studies  about  the  

difficulties  of  being  a  female  sports  reporter  (Hardin  and  Shane  2005).  

Conclusion  

   Earlier  studies  and  this  studies  hypothesis  on  the  way  in  which  gender  

relates  to  news  assignments  are  generally  supported  by  the  data  found  on  the  49  

front  pages  coded.  Women  write  more  soft  news  than  men  in  the  data  collected,  this  

is  most  evident  in  categories  related  to  international  news.  

  Included  is  a  graph  (Figure  9)  which  composites  the  entire  number  of  articles  

written  and  compares  it  to  those  written  by  women  (individual  women  and  all  

female  groups  combined).  Mixed  gender  pairs  are  not  counted  towards  the  number  

of  women.    

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Figure  9  

 

By  Paper  

  This  section  of  the  results  aims  to  find  if  either  The  New  York  Times  or  The  

Wall  Street  Journal  have  more  female  writers.  

The  New  York  Times  

  Out  of  133  articles  from  The  New  York  Times,  56.4%  of  them  were  written  by  

individual  men,  23.3%  by  individual  women,  15.3%  by  groups  of  men,  11.3%  by  

mixed  gender  groups,  and  1.5%  by  groups  of  women.    

The  Wall  Street  Journal  

  Coding  revealed  in  99  articles  from  The  Wall  Street  Journal  that  33.3%  of  

articles  were  written  by  men,  20.2%  by  mixed  gender  groups,  17.2%  by  women,  

17.2%  by  groups  of  men,  and  2%  by  groups  of  women.    

Conclusion  

  The  findings  of  this  research  absolutely  did  not  support  the  hypothesis  that  

The  New  York  Times  would  have  more  front-­‐page  feature  female  journalists,  but  

rather  that  The  Wall  Street  Journal  was  more  equitable  in  the  distribution  of  gender,  

though  there  was  still  a  strong  tendency  to  have  more  male  journalists.    

 

Discussion  and  Conclusions  

  As  stated  in  various  other  research,  women  have  a  difficult  tasking  in  

infiltrating  prestige  markets  (Bertrand,  Goldin,  and  Katz  2010).  These  results  

would  support  the  idea  that  there  is  an  overrepresentation  of  men  versus  the  

general  populace.  What’s  significant  is  that  in  journalism,  the  numbers  start  out  

much  more  evenly.  At  Columbia’s  graduate  program  in  journalism,  consistently  

voted  one  of  the  best  journalism  graduate  schools  in  the  United  States,  52%  of  

students  are  women  (Demographics  2011).  Compare  that  to  the  small  percentage  of  

featured  female  reporters  at  The  New  York  Times  and  The  Wall  Street  Journal  and  

there  is  the  possibility  that  there  is  very  tangible  institutional  sexism  in  the  

journalism  industry.  

  However,  there  is  much  more  to  study  when  it  comes  to  where  sexism  is  first  

visible  in  journalism.  A  possible  solution  would  be  to  compile  a  list  of  every  

journalist  employed  by  The  New  York  Times  and  The  Wall  Street  Journal  and  

compare  the  gender  of  the  journalists  featured  on  the  front  page  to  the  ratio  of  

journalists  employed  by  the  organization.  This  could  show  whether  or  not  sexism  

starts  in  the  hiring  process  or  in  the  editorial  office.  

  Finally,  an  expansion  of  this  project  would  be  to  take  the  preliminary  results  

found  here  the  relative  preponderance  about  Health,  Science,  &  Technology  and  see  

if  it  holds  true  in  a  larger  sample  and  try  to  find  a  cause  for  that.    

 

   

   

Refrences:  

Bertrand,  Marriane,  Claudia  Goldin,  and  Lawrence  Katz.  2010.  "Dynamics  of  the    Gender  Gap  for  Young  Professionals  in  the  Financial  and  Corporate    Sectors."  American  Economic  Journal  2,  no.  3  :  228-­‐255.  

 Bogart,  Leo.  1993.  "Newspaper  of  the  future:  Our  look  at  the  next    

century."  Newspaper  Research  Journal  14,  no.  2:  2-­‐10.Communication  &  Mass  Media  Complete,  EBSCOhost      

"Demographics  —  Journalism,  Columbia  University  in  the  City  of  New  York  —    PhDs.org  Graduate  School  Guide."  PhDs.org.  N.p.,  n.d.  Web.  1  Dec.  2011.  <http://graduate-­‐school.phds.org/university/columbia/pro  

 Eide,  Eric.  1994.  College  major  choice  and  changes  in  the  gender  wage    

gap.  Contemporary  Economic  Policy  12,  (2),  55-­‐55    Gaziano,  Cecilie,  and  Kristin  McGrath.  1986.  "Measuring  the  Concept  of    

Credibility."  Journalism  Quarterly  63,  no.  3:  451-­‐462.Communication  &  Mass  Media  Complete,  EBSCOhost    

 Hardin,  Marle  ,  and  Stacie  Shane.    2005.  "Female  Sports  Journalists:  Are  We  There  Yet?  No."  Newspaper  Research  Journal  26,  no.  4,  22-­‐35.      

O'Neill,  June.  2003.  "Catching  Up:  The  Gender  Gap  in  Wages,  circa  2000."The  American    

Economic  Review  93,  no.  2.  309.    Shaw,  Donald  Lewis.  1984.  "News  About  Slavery  from  1820-­‐1860  In  Newspapers    

of  South,  North  and  West."  Journalism  Quarterly  61,  no.  3:  483-­‐492.  Communication  &  Mass  Media  Complete,  EBSCOhost    

     Singleton,  Loy  A.  ,  and  Stephanie  L.  Cook.  1982.    "Television  Network  News    

Reporting  by  Female  Correspondents:  An  Update."  Journal  of    Broadcasting26,  no.  1,  487-­‐491.  

 

Weaver,  David  H.,  and  G.  Cleveland  Wilhoit.  1996.  "Basic  Characteristics  of  US    Journalists."  In  The  American  Journalist  in  the  1990s:  U.S.  News  people  at  the  End  of  an  Era.  New  York:  Erlbaum,  1-­‐28.  

 

Varma,  Roli.  2002.    "Women  in  Information  Technology:  A  Case  Study  of    Undergraduate  Students  in  a  Minority-­‐Serving  Institution."  Bulletin  of    Science,  Technology  &  Science  22,  no.  4,  274-­‐282.  

 

                                       

     Appendix-­    Dates  selected:    2005-­‐03-­‐07  2005-­‐03-­‐11  2005-­‐04-­‐19  2005-­‐06-­‐28  2005-­‐08-­‐05  2005-­‐08-­‐23  2006-­‐10-­‐11  2007-­‐07-­‐27  2007-­‐09-­‐10  2007-­‐12-­‐07  2007-­‐12-­‐25  (No  Wall  Street  Journal  published)  2008-­‐01-­‐03  2008-­‐02-­‐19  2008-­‐05-­‐05  2008-­‐06-­‐03  2008-­‐10-­‐31  2008-­‐11-­‐11  2008-­‐12-­‐11  2008-­‐12-­‐17  2009-­‐01-­‐20  2009-­‐03-­‐13  2009-­‐03-­‐25  2009-­‐12-­‐11  2010-­‐12-­‐01  2010-­‐12-­‐20