Welcome to week four

Welcome to another week of counting bylines! We’re entering our fourth week of research, and some interesting patterns are starting to emerge. Based on the last three weeks, here are the percentage of male-penned op-eds in the papers we’re looking at:

HuffPost	LAT	NYT	Salon	WaPo	WSJ
63.33	58.33	82.55	81.2	86.67	95.9

We started this project with the knowledge that, in 2004, about 15% of op-eds were written by women. Based on data for the last three weeks – and keep in mind, we have almost two-and-a-half more months of research left – indicates that those numbers have changed very little. Five years on, the majority of the publications we’re looking at are over 80% male. The op-ed pages of The New York Times, Salon, The Washington Post and Wall Street Journal are all over 80% male.

Secondly, we were interested to see if online journalism is more likely to include women’s voices than print journalism is. Based on the numbers at The Huffington Post (63%) and at Salon (83%), it doesn’t seem that being an online publication is a guarantee of being a more gender-diverse publication. Of course, in order to make that conclusion with more certainty, you’d have to look at more than two online papers. But I hadn’t expected Salon’s numbers of women to be so low when compared to HuffPo.

Finally, it’s clear that since Susan Estrich spoke out about the lack of women on the LA Times’ op-ed page in 2004, there has been a vast improvement at that paper. Over the last three weeks, the LAT’s op-ed page has been, on average, 42% female, making it by far the best performer out of the papers we’re looking at.

Anyway, we’ll be tracking the numbers until the end of October, but for the next few weeks, I’m going to be looking in to what women write about when they’re published. Do they write primarily about “women’s issues”? Are there women being positioned as experts on national defense and fiscal policy? If not, why not? I’ll be talking to editors and experts about if and why women and men write about different things when they write op-eds.

It should be really exciting, so stay tuned!

Week 3 stats

Alright, party people -and I exclude myself from that group, seeing as I’m home on a Friday night compiling statistics – welcome to the end of week three.  Below are the numbers for the third week of the Byline Survey. And I know I promised you pretty, pretty graphs: they are coming. I promise. For now, here are the numbers in table form.

Paper	HuffPost	LA Times	NYT	Salon	WaPo	WSJ
%age Men	84	55	81.25	88	100	94
%age Women	16	45	18.75	22	0	6

As you can see, it’s been an unusual week on America’s major op-ed pages. As we mentioned (and celebrated) a few days ago, the WSJ ran an op-ed by a woman this week! Hurrah! And as we’ve come to expect, the LAT had an almost 50-50 week. It’s a breath of fresh air in an otherwise rather dismal set of numbers.

WaPo’s numbers are not what we’ve come to expect from the paper – from the WSJ, sure, but not WaPo! – but I think they can be easily explained. Following the death of Senator Ted Kennedy on Tuesday, WaPo , for some reason, published almost no contributors in the latter half of the week. So take that 100% with a grain of salt. Also – we’ll miss you, Teddy.

HuffPo was full of tributes to Kennedy, most of which, as you can see, where written by men. That said, HuffPo managed to salvage what was looking like a less-than-stellar week; after two days of barely breaking 10%, they managed to bring it up to a total of 16% of the week. Which is not far behind the NYT, but which is also below their usual standards.

So that’s it for week three, an unusual week in many ways. Have a lovely weekend, and see you next week!

It’s opposite week

Yesterday felt a little bit like opposite day. The WSJ had a woman and the NYT and Salon had none. Is it opposite week?

Today, the LAT and Salon have no women. While I congratulate the WSJ on what is, for them, an estrogen-heavy week, I’m a little perplexed about what’s going on at Salon and LAT. Where are the women? Even at HuffPost, which usually hovers around 20%, has had two 10% days this week.

We started this week so strong, with a 100% day at LAT. It couldn’t last forever, but it would have been nice to see it last a few days.

In other news, don’t miss this piece by OEP alum Mazan Asbahi. It’s rare and important insight into what it means to be a Muslim in America.

Too good to last

Yesterday was an unusually good day for women on the op-ed pages. Especially at The Los Angeles Times, where all three op-ed contributors were women.

Sadly, yesterday’s apparent progress was too good to last. A day on which 100% of a mainstream paper’s op-ed contributors were women doesn’t seem to mark an aberration, but rather a trend: today, we’re back to the status quo, with almost no women on the nation’s op-ed pages. There are, in fact, no women to be found in any print papers. That’s no women at the NYT, LAT, WaPo or WSJ. It looks as though yesterday was a one-off, albeit a very exciting one. Salon’s op-ed page is 50% women today, though, with Rachel Maddow and Margaret Winter teaming up to write about prison HIV policies.

That said, the week is still young. Perhaps we’ll get another 100% day some say soon. I’m looking at you, Wednesday.

This is what progress looks like

Today, 100% of the op-ed contributors at The Los Angeles Times are women. That’s right, one hundred percent. Someone get me some bubbly!

This is the first time since we started tracking bylines a few weeks ago that any paper has broken 75%, and I’m not surprised that it’s come from the LAT.  For the last two weeks, they have been ahead of the pack in terms of their numbers of women – two weeks ago, their gender balance was exactly 50-50. The LAT has clearly made a concerted and consistent effort to bring women’s voices into the public debate, and they ought to be congratulated.

What a lovely way to start the week! Let’s hope the rest of the week is as encouraging as today.

Wrapping up week 2

Here we are at the end of another week, our second of counting bylines. The numbers for this week are as follows (stay tuned for spiffy graphs!):

LA Times: 30% women

Washington Post: 25% women

Huffington Post: 21% women

NYT: 17% women

Salon: 11% women

WSJ: 6.25% women

Comparing this week with last, we’ve seen improvements at WaPo and HuffPost, and lost ground from LAT and Salon. The NYT has been consistent over the last two weeks, and of course, 6.25% from WSJ is huge.

Ladies, if these numbers make you less than happy, you can do something to change them. You can write 750 words about something you feel strongly about, and submit those words to a newspaper. Submit it to The Wall Street Journal, or one of the other papers that had very few women on its op-ed page in the last two weeks. Let’s show these papers just how many women experts there are out there, and how dramatically public discourse can be improved by including them.

It’s jig time, kids!

Remember how yesterday I promised that when The Wall Street Journal finally published an op-ed by a woman, I would dance a jig and shave my head? Well get out your bagpipes and sharpen your razor, because today, that which was becoming unthinkable finally happened. The Wall Street Journal published an op-ed by a woman, thereby ending a two-and-a-half week no-women streak.

Everywhere else, it was a disappointing day, with no women in the NYT, Salon, or even the usually-reliable LA Times. Even HuffPo, after a good day yesterday, dropped back down to below 20% women.

While I congratulate the WSJ for breaking its nearly three-week streak of all-male debate, it’s hardly cause for celebration. The lack of women in the WSJ is unacceptable. Women are 50% of the population, and are responsible for 83% of household spending. Why are they barely present in the public debate over the nation’s most pressing economic and political issues?

Oh, and in case you were wondering what it looks like when I dance a jig, it looks like this.

A true hump day

Sigh. Today was not a good day for women on the op-ed pages of America. Not a single woman to be found in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Salon or – no surprises here – The Wall Street Journal.

Honestly, when WSJ finally prints an op-ed written by a woman, I’m going to dance a jig and shave my head. Simultaneously. This is their thirteenth consecutive day without a woman-penned op-ed. That’s two-and-a-half weeks without a woman on the op-ed page!

On the bright side, The Huffington Post did very well today: 27% of their op-eds were written by women, making today their most equitable day since we started tracking bylines last week.

So congrats to HuffPo, and as for the WSJ – well, let’s just say I haven’t started practicing my dancing or sharpening my razor yet.

It’s a numbers game

As I noted yesterday, the byline numbers for last week are in. And as I noted yesterday, they are a mixed bag.

Huge snaps to The LA Times for a 50-50 split. Four years ago, Susan Estrich, a writer at that very paper, noted (rather vocally, and to the consternation of many) that there were far fewer women being published on the LA Times op-ed page. Four years later, women are 50% of their op-ed contributors. Coincidence? Unlikely.

It would seem that The LA Times has made a concerted effort in recent years to include more women’s voices, and perhaps, more women have been submitting to the paper, increasing the supply of available women’s voices. The Op Ed Project aims to work at the second half of the equation, the supply side, providing editors with credible and well-crafted women-penned op-ed pieces, thus making it easier for papers to bring their op-ed pages up to 50-50.

It’s also interesting to note the drop-off after LAT and Salon (33.35%). Trailing almost 15% behind Salon are HuffPo, NYT and WaPo (17%, 16.6% and 15% respectively). The LA Times and Salon are doing well, no doubt, but why is there such a large gap between the top performers and the cluster of three papers near 15%?

Finally, on a more personal note, anyone who knows me knows that I love the show Mad Men. Feminism and vintage clothing is a pretty lethal combination. Which is why I was especially thrilled to read what OEP alumnus Jennifer Allyn had to say in her op-ed at Forbes.com.

Allyn writes:

“Mad Men reminds us that profound cultural change is possible. Corporate America still has flaws, but in hindsight the progress made over the past five decades is indisputable. The third season begins in 1963, five years prior to the iconic advertising campaign whose slogan capitalized on the theme of women’s liberation. While some may argue it was just a cynical ploy by Virginia Slims to sell more cigarettes, the spirit of “You’ve come a long way baby” still rings true.

Now the urgent question becomes: Will Generation Y women grab the baton from their mothers and grandmothers and lead us all the way to the top?”

Amen, sister. And congrats on your first ever op-ed!

The findings: week one

Welcome to a new week at the Byline Blog! Last week was our first week of tracking op-ed bylines in the nation’s most influential papers. The findings were fascinating.

The strongest performer by far was The Los Angeles Times: exactly 50% of its op-eds were written by women. Not far was Salon, with 33.3%.

After that, the numbers drop off a bit, with The Huffington Post at 17%, The New York Times at 16.6% and The Washington Post at 15%.

In last place was The Wall Street Journal, which in the week of August 10, published not a single woman-penned op-ed. Not one.

Granted, one week does not a sample size make, but I have to wonder, when I look at The LA Times and The Wall Street Journal: are we seeing the beginnings of a pattern?