Why was Judy Dean’s economic common sense so easily dismissed?
It’s pretty obvious if you’re a woman looking at how women’s roles in politics are discussed and who leads that discussion. On my television, Speaker Pelosi’s victory celebration in November was narrated by former sports anchor Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews, a former White House speechwriter and aide to House Speaker Tip O’Neil. On Sundays, I can glimpse Cokie Roberts—daughter of two much-loved Washington figures—between former presidential counselors George Will and George Stephanopoulos. Or I can watch Tim Russert with occasional guest, Andrea Mitchell—wife of former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan—grill various politicos.
Now, the point here isn’t to belittle the women who have managed to become part of the media establishment. It is, instead, to underscore the closed nature of that establishment. It’s a narrowing that started when editors at the big papers started hiring young men like themselves—well-off, Ivy-educated—to cover politics and public affairs.
The situation has only worsened as the number of news outlets—particularly newspapers—have contracted. Competition for reporting jobs became more intense, and fewer jobs meant fewer opportunities for anyone wanting to cover politics, diplomacy, or public policy. Regardless of gender, those who got seats at the table are and were less likely to welcome any competition. Editors hired reporters and writers who they felt had the right qualifications and, as with almost every other industry, those qualifications—real or imagined—reflected editors’ own experience. Like hired like.
The obvious—and easy—response to the lack of women writers at traditional outlets has been to count bylines and mount publicity campaigns. Political activist Susan Estrich started this idea when she took a look at the Los Angeles Times roster and found that it lacking women’s voices.
Byline counting is a little bit of quota mischief that’s created some pressure on editors to mend their ways. But counting looks back to an industry that’s in the throes of tremendous change, not ahead to capitalizing on the changes that are coming in the media business. Like many efforts at reform, byline counting assumes that the large media outlets will remain dominant in American culture and commentary, using the forms and formats they already employ today. That’s simply not the case.
Perhaps more importantly, the focus on what has happened shifts attention away from what could—and should—be done to expand and deepen the reporting, writing, and commentary that women can and should do.
I think, in no small part because I’m doing it, that there’s enormous opportunity for anyone willing to turn away from established media outlets to live and work on the Web. No, it’s not paper. Yes, there’s a chance your friends won’t read it and might not have heard of it. And no, it’s not—for now—as influential as the established outlets. But those older, stately doors are closed—for financial and other reasons—right now to almost everyone who wants to apply. The frustration that’s created—on both sides—is why I think the writing, newsgathering, and commentary careers of the future are being shaped, developed, and launched online right now.
We all know readers want something different—poll after poll shows reader dissatisfaction. We also know that putting women in charge of the decisions about how society, culture, and politics are covered changes the tenor and tone of the conversation. The best example I can think of is the once-stultifying Washington Week, now moderated by Gwen Ifill. The program now has more women and minority journalists appearing more regularly than any of the weekly political chat shows I’ve named above. That’s not a coincidence.
This picture is complicated, however, by the speed at which things are changing in the new medium being fostered on the Internet. Although the phenomenon of online commentary was popular in 2004 and 2006, with this election cycle, there’s an increasing distrust of the blogging community among general-interest readers. They are finding the stark partisanship, name-calling, bad writing, and lousy reporting often accepted on blog sites well below their standards. This isn’t a surprise. The first people to grasp and deploy any new technology are often those who have the most to gain—the disenfranchised, the outraged, the rabble-rousers. And that certainly describes the first wave of bloggers. But those sorts of efforts are almost always not sustainable. An audience may be outraged temporarily and moved to action but—as any organizer knows—that sense of high-octane purpose is hard, if not impossible, to maintain for more than a short period of time.
