Women in Only 6% of Top Media Jobs, Study Says

Women hold only 6% of top jobs in the news media and 25% of mid-management jobs, according to a study released today at a conference here on “Women, Men and Media.”

The study, financed primarily by the conference’s sponsor, the Gannett Foundation, also reported that women in the media earn 64 cents for every dollar earned by a man.

“Not only are women ignored at jobs in the media, they are slighted in coverage as well,” the study said.

The researchers said they studied photos, bylines and story sources in 10 newspapers in March and found that 27% of the bylines on the front page were female, 24% of the photos included women, usually with their families, and 11% of the people quoted were female.

Using this standard, the researchers ranked the newspapers “from best to worst” as follows:

USA Today first; the Houston Chronicle and Atlanta Constitution tied for second; followed in order by the Seattle Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Chicago Tribune and New York Times.

A study of nightly network newscasts found that from 1975 to 1989 the percentage of female news correspondents increased from 9.9% to 15.8%. The report said the percentages of stories filed by women in February were 22.2% on CBS, 14.4% on NBC and 10.5% on ABC.