Linda Keenan and Janine R. Wedel Argue the Banking Elite are Anti-Capitalist, and Week 11 Byline Survey Results

This week only 13% of the op-eds published in the Wall St. Journal and the Washington Post were authored by women, the lowest percentage for both papers over the course of the byline survey. The New York Times, the publication with the lowest average of female authored op-eds, published a slightly higher percentage this week at 18%. All three of the college newspapers are temporarily discontinued due to exams or vacation, so those numbers are not included in this weeks survey.

 

NYT         WSJ           WP           SA        HP         DB

%W          18%        13%         13%         21%        15%       35%

%M           82%        87%        87%        79%        85%        65%

 

This past Sunday, reporter Louise Story published an investigation—“A Secretive Banking Elite Rules Trading in Derivatives,” in the New York Times. Story’s article examined how “nine members of an elite Wall Street society,” described by critics as the “derivatives dealers club,” gather each month, attempting “to block other banks from entering the [derivatives] market, and … also trying to thwart efforts to make full information on prices and fees freely available.”

Today, Linda Keenan and Janine R. Wedel published a column in the Huffington Post, arguing that the investigation proves the banking elite are working against the most fundamental values of capitalism, at a cost that “ trickles down to all Americans.”

Keenen and Wedel draw a comparison between the privatization of information by America’s banking elite and the informal networks that arose after the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe. These networks “amassed and guarded vital information didn’t collapse with it, but rather rose up to configure, and sometimes even become the new system.” Similarly, the effort by the banking elite to keep competition low and withhold price information are profit maximizing tactics that go against free market policy.

Fighting against a sea of criticism published in response to Story’s article in the Times, Keenen and Wedel’s piece stands apart from the crowd in arguing the banking elite are working against free market system and capitalist values, the very ideas the United States financial sector stands to represent. Female-authored commentary on issues related to the financial sector is few and far between, and it is great to see such a strong argument voiced by two women! If you have your own perspective on the Times investigation, now is the time to voice it!

Ruth Marcus on the Upside of Obama’s Tax Cut Deal and Byline Survey Results Week 10

This week opinion commentary across the board abounded with criticism of Obama’s tax cut deal. In contrast to the sea of disapproval, Ruth Marcus wrote an op-ed in today’s edition of the Washington Post arguing Obama’s tax cut deal could present a blessing in disguise. Although she readily recognizes that the maintenance of Bush’s tax cuts throughout Obama’s term is in many ways “galling,” Marcus argues that in the short term, while the economy is still suffering, extending the tax cuts could actually make a great deal of sense.

Her optimism derives from a belief that the tax cut deal could serve to re-frame the debate over taxes and produce significant reform of the tax system. Marcus argues that “the White House could seize the moment to shift the argument away from the stale question of whether rates should rise, and toward the more attractive playing field of how they can be lowered – and more revenue raised in the bargain.”

Additionally, Marcus sees the deal as a relatively painless way for Obama “to wriggle out of his most irresponsible campaign promise: to permanently extend the so-called middle-class tax cuts, the middle in this case amounting to 98 percent of households.” As making those cuts permanent, as the president and congressional Democrats wanted, would cost more than $2 trillion over the next decade.

In other news, this weeks byline survey finds slightly higher than average percentages of female writers. Salon published the highest ratio of female authors at 36%, with the Daily Beast coming in second at 26%. We are just a few short weeks away from the completion of the three-month survey, so make sure to stay tuned for updates on the final report!

 

NYT         WSJ           WP           SA         HP         DB

%W           22           20             21            36           22         26

%M           78           80             81            64           78          74

Byline Survey Week 9 and a cumulative look at the past 2 months

The first of December marked the beginning of the 3rd, and final month of the byline survey! Here are the results from this past week:

NYT       WP        WSJ       HP        DB        SA      CU      DP      YD

%W   15%    24%     18%     22%     22%     20%     56%     9%     43%
%M    85%    76%      82%    78%     78%      80%     44%   91%    57%

Two months into the survey,  I wanted to update with a cumulative look at the data collected so far. For those of you who are regular followers of the survey, this chart should help provide a more concrete sense of the numbers in contrast to the weekly tallies which only reflect 7 days of data.

To those readers who are newcomers to the byline blog, the byline survey is a three-month long study to monitor and analyze female voices on the op-ed pages of major print, online, and college news sources.  The results of the survey will be collected in a comprehensive report that will provide key insight to how women are represented in opinion journalism across the board. The survey tracks op-eds in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Daily Beast, Salon, and The Huffington Post, in addition to the college publications, the Columbia Daily Spectator, the Daily Princetonian and the Yale Daily News.

Here compiled results from the last two months:

As you can see, the print news publications publish the lowest percentage of female authors. That the college publications have the highest percentage of female authors seems to suggest that the next generation of journalists will bring more gender equality to the op-ed pages.

Stay tuned for another update on the survey soon!

The OpEd Project reaches a readership of over 30 million!

This past week, several OpEd Project alumni published op-eds across a number of widely read news publications, including the New York Times, The Huffington Post, and USA Today, reaching an audience of an estimated over 30 million people!  The op-eds cover a wide range of issues, but all stand as a significant contribution to the presence of female voices on the opinion pages! Congratulations to each of the authors, and to the OpEd Project for helping to inspire such impressive commentary!

Please take the time to read what these wonderful alum have to say:

Anne Michaud: Fair Pay For Women? Yes, But Not Like This. Newsday.com, November 29, 2010

Julie Zhuo: Where Anonymity Breeds Contempt. New York Times, November 29, 2010

Sarah Marxer: Adopting an Older Child. KQED Radio, November 29, 2010

Mariko Lin Chang:  Paycheck Fairness Act Fails in Senate. OUP Blog, November 22nd, 2010

Debra Eschmeyer: Stick a Fork in It: Pass The Child Nutrition Act. The Huffington Post, November 22nd, 2010

Joan Blades: Boost the Bottom Line: Invest in People. USA Today, November 22nd, 2010

By Tabby Biddle:The OpEd Project: Amplifying Women’s Voices in the Media. The Huffington Post, November 19, 2010.