Yes, Gender Impacts Journalism

Jill Abramson, executive editor of the New York Times, recently said “The idea that women journalists bring a different taste in stories or sensibility isn’t true.”

Really?

These are surprising remarks from the first woman to be placed at the top of the Times masthead. Still, we sympathize with her fantasy that gender doesn’t matter in journalism, and Ken Auletta’s story last year in the New Yorker offers a hint why Abramson would maintain this narrow-minded view. He reports:

When Eileen Shanahan, who went on to become a well-respected economics reporter, arrived for an interview with Clifton Daniel, the assistant managing editor, in 1962, she hid her desire to become an editor. “All I ever want is to be a reporter on the best newspaper in the world,” she told him.

“That’s good,” Daniel responded, as Shanahan told the story, “because I can assure you no woman will ever be an editor at the New York Times.”

You see, @JillAbramson is in a tough spot. She aligns her worldview with that of past senior editors, perhaps to show that as the Times‘ most powerful woman executive ever, she won’t subvert the patriarchy. If she were more frank about the gravity of being the Gray Lady’s first female executive editor, she’d likely pay a tall price. She’d:

  • be attacked by her colleagues
  • need to defend herself
  • feel seduced away from her formal task of leading the newsroom, and ultimately
  • waste her energy and be de-authorized in her role.

An experience none of her predecessors faced on account of their gender.

And in being so politic, she misses the truth. What truth?

Read more

3 “A”s of Ambition

Last week we sat on a panel at Pace University discussing “diversity in the workplace.”  Panelists talked about corporate and non-profit initiatives that exist to promote more integrated places of work, and how students can prepare themselves to talk about issues of identity and organizational dynamics during interviews.

It was an even-keeled evening for a theme that many folks have been socialized to avoid:  essentially how race, class, gender, sexual orientation, religion, ability, ethnicity and age relate to the American social structure. Panelists focused on how students can excel within this reality.

The final discussion prompt was “what career advice do you have for students?” This is what we had to say, in essence:

The upper echelons of organizations still largely lack diversity. While companies write policies about recruiting a fully representative workforce, and many have “diversity offices,” this sometimes allows the top brass to feel they’re working enough to create an integrated environment.  And yet, the pool of Fortune 500 CEOs is comprised mostly of straight White males. How can a young upstart work her way up? Read more