Women Athletes Often Debased By Media Images; Some Play Along

Women may be participating in record numbers and succeeding spectacularly in sports, but they are routinely shown off the field, out of uniform and in highly sexualized poses, accordinspeakseakes at a workshop on "Images of Women, Sexuality and Nationalism." Seldom do media kit photos show women athletes in action. Media images of women in mainstream media have gone from hyperfeminization to hypersexualization.

Reporters' Coverage of Women Candidates Remains Problematic, Studies Say

Two studies newspaper coverage of former Republican presidential candidate Elizabeth Dole suggest that gender plays a role in the way reporters treat a candidate for office -- the gender of the reporter and the gender of the candidate.

News Analysis: Women Still Don't Rate In New York Times Coverage

An analysis by a VH1 executive found that 84% of NYT obits were about men. Many of the few that were about the lives of women were wives, daughters and mothers of famous men. Women wrote only 15% of the op-eds and 28% of the magazine's cover stories. There were significant differences in topics authored by women and men as well, according to the analysis.

FAIR Protests Gender Gap Among National Press Club Speakers

Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) contacted the National Press Club in August 2000 with her concern about whom the organization considers sufficiently newsworthy to address its regular luncheon and participate in its "Newsmaker" series. FAIR's analysis showed that of the more than 100 individuals invited to address these NPC audiences between January and Aug. 8, only 13 were women. The NPC has pledged better efforts.

Global Media Monitoring Project Assesses Women's Presence

GMMP2, in which volunteers in 70 countries conducted a one-day study of the portrayal and representation of women in the news on radio, television and newspapers, found that women accounted for 41% of the journalists in the world's media but only 18% of people interviewed. Women continued to be portrayed as victims a substantial amount of the time, accounting for 18.7% of all interviewees and news subjects (contrasted with 29% in GMMP1's analysis in 1995). Victimized men accounted for 7.4% of all interviewees or news subjects (10% in 1995). For women in television, appearance seems to remain a stronger job prerequisite for women than men.

Smaller TV Networks Better for Women Characters, Creators, Study Says

Programs on smaller networks (UPN and WB) featured significantly greater percentages of female characters than programs on the big three networks or Fox, according to this analysis. Programs on the weblets also employed significantly grpercentagesntages of women creators and executive producers, and more favorable scheduling practices.

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