”Newspapers are either going to give us what we need or we`re going to go elsewhere.”
The subject was the the role of women in the future of media. The ultimatum could not have been more blunt. And it was delivered right between the eyes of some 200 writers, editors, publishers, educators and executives.
The message came not from some wild-eyed activist but from one of mainstream print journalism`s own, Judy Mann, a columnist for the Washington Post.
Mann was the luncheon speaker at ”The New Realities of Women`s Power,”
a recent seminar at Columbia University`s Graduate School of Journalism sponsored by Women, Men & Media, a research organization examining gender issues in the media.
In introducing Mann to the audience, Joan Konner, the first female dean of the Columbia Journalism School, said that archaic notions of segregating
”women`s” or ”soft” news from the ”more serious” or ”hard” news interests ascribed to men are eroding, but not fast enough to reflect the changes in society.
”What used to be considered women`s news is now found on the front page and everywhere else in the newspaper,” Konner said.
”I don`t know about you, but it seems to me that that whole metaphor about `soft` and `hard` news could only come from men.”
In a speech that was witty and gritty, Mann, who also is an author, wife and mother of three, picked up on the theme and pulled no punches in indicting the industry that is her livelihood for failing to respond to the very readers who are its future.
Between 1983 and 1987, she said, newspapers sustained a 26 percent loss in frequent women readers. And, until newspaper editors and executives realize that women-most of whom work, many of whom balance professional and family life and some of whom own 30 percent of all American businesses-have come a long way in their interests, newspapers can expect to continue waving their female readership good-bye.
It is a loss the newspaper industry, beleaguered by falling advertising sales and a growing population of young non-newspaper readers, can ill afford, she said.
”In the best of times, no industry can afford to ignore half of its market. Certainly, in the worst of times, that`s just plain suicide.”
In preparing her remarks, Mann said she had reviewed columns she had written over the years about Betty Friedan, a pioneer feminist and one of the co-chairs of the seminar, and found one recurring theme:
”Men and women are in this together. The vision Betty Friedan has always had includes men as well as women, and that is a vision the media need to share.
”The truth is that women are no more integrated into news coverage than they are in the newsroom,” Mann said, citing a Gannett Co. focus group on female readership that found that ”to a woman, they resented the concept of a women`s page.”
Newspaper decisionmakers, most of whom Mann fingered as ”white men,”
are going to have to wake up and smell the Chanel No. 5 before it`s too late. ”I look at the news coverage of women, and it`s like looking into a funhouse mirror,” she said.
”We are either too tall in our aspirations or too small in our talents, and a lot of the time we don`t even show up in the mirror at all.
”It`s little wonder that the sports department gets a disproportionate share of resources.”
Part of the problem, she said, can be traced to conventional wisdom that says women don`t have the time to read most sections of the newspaper, a theory that conveniently exempts what one can only presume to be equally busy male readers.
The truth is, ”we don`t have time to waste on things that have nothing to do with us,” she said.
”And the men running newspapers today have no idea what our lives are like.”
Newspapers, to save themselves from becoming irrelevant to the lives of female readers, need to make some fundamental changes that reflect what`s really going on in women`s lives, Mann said.
For starters, she said, the concept of ”women`s” stories must be updated.
”We don`t want any more blame and guilt,” she said, citing the endless stories pitting working versus stay-at-home women.
”When newspapers do try to do contemporary stories about women, they are usually from a handful of standbys,” she said, ticking off the ”career versus homemaker” story (”which never mentions that the homemaker of today may be only a divorce or death away from becoming a working woman tomorrow”); the ”biological clock” story; and ”who can forget that wonderful story about women over the age of 40 who have a better chance of being hit by a terrorist bomb than getting married?”-a story, she noted, that made headlines everywhere as opposed to the later Census Bureau story, which stated that those women had a 23 percent chance of being married, not a 2.6 percent chance, which ended up buried in the back pages.
National news editors, she said, continue to fail to see the importance to both men and women of coverage of developments such as the Family Leave and Medical Act that was defeated in Congress last summer.
”I can guarantee you,” Mann said, ”that Wimbledon (tennis) got more coverage in your newspaper . . . than the Family Leave and Medical Act did.” International news editors need a mindset revamp as well, Mann said.
”We want to know what women in other countries are doing. These are good stories.
”The Romanian policies on abortion were known in Europe but not here until after Nicolae Ceausescu was executed,” she said, referring to the ban on abortion, mandated by the former Romanian president, that resulted in overflowing orphanges filled with neglected children.
All editors could do more about recognizing the ”balancing act” between home and office that both men and women struggle with every day, she said.
”Do things for me that I can`t do for myself,” she said.
”Don`t cover schools the same old way; go into the classrooms for me because I can`t go there myself anymore. Tell me what my children are really learning and if they are still letting little boys interrupt and not recognizing the raised hands of little girls.
”Cover girls` sports better-and you`ll get them to read the paper.
”Cover violence against women and children the way it should be covered,” she urged.
”One out of four women can expect to be raped at some point in her life. Safety is one of the most pressing concerns women have.
”The Republicans knew that,” she chided, noting that despite the Republican party`s stance on abortion, it still managed to lure many women voters by addressing crime and safety issues.
Newspapers devoted column after column of front-page coverage to the savings-and-loan crisis, she said, but rarely a word to ”child care and the lack of it, which is a daily wrenching reality.”
”Devote as much to the balancing act that women are doing as you do to the pigskin act that men are doing on a football field and you`ll get the women readers back,” she said.
As her parting shot, columnist Mann gave newspaper executives a warning and a promise:
”The key to our survival is our women readers, and they are leaving us in droves. You need us. Make us need you, and we`ll be back.”
