Men dominate newsrooms, says survey

Chris Tryhorn

Guardian Unlimited

Friday December 28 2007
The journalists making key editorial decisions at newspapers and broadcasters are overwhelmingly male, according to a survey published today.
The Fawcett Society, which campaigns for equality and published the research, said the media was missing out on a "huge pool" of female talent.
Its study showed that only two out of the 17 national newspapers editors were women - the Sun's Rebekah Wade and Tina Weaver of the Sunday Mirror - while there was just one female deputy editor, Jane Johnson of the News of the World.
It also found that while 15 out of 34 radio and TV presenters were women, just one out of 17 news programme editors were female.
The study said the problem extended to reporting at Westminster, where one in five MPs are female.
Only 26% of political journalists registered at the House of Commons - 104 out of 395 - were women, the society said, while just two out of the 16 political editors of national newspapers were female.
Katherine Rake, the director of the Fawcett Society, said viewers, listeners and readers were "missing out" because women were under-represented in the media.
"Women must not only be presenting the news, they must be making the decisions that determine what gets broadcast in the first place.
"We now need to see positive steps taken to make sure that women can break through the glass ceiling and fulfil their potential at the highest level.
"We know that women are more dissatisfied with politics and feel more disengaged from the political agenda.
"Women need to play an equal role in setting the political agenda, both in parliament itself and within the political media. This research shows just how far there is to go until that is achieved."