3rd Fordham Convening–Going Off the Page

Today Fordham’s Public Voices scholars convened for the third time at Fordham’s Lincoln Center campus for a fully packed day-long session led by our illustrious team leaders Zeba Khan, Abby Ellin and Catherine O’Neill Grace, the last of whom “came on like gangbusters” (as some scholars warmly noted) to lead her first ever Public Voices session. In other exciting news, the day was documented by Emmy-award winning filmmaker Mary Olive Smith, with our very own Deborah Siegel hosting individual on-camera interviews with each scholar—all as part of the upcoming Public Voices Fellowship video.

[Catherine O'Neill Grace, welcome aboard!]

The convening began with a Gathering and Sharing session, when scholars reflected on their experience as Public Voices fellows and leaders marveled at the incredible increase in Fordham successes in the last quarter, during which it practically “rained op-eds.” Several scholars gratefully noted the crucial role the OEP played in jump-starting their passion and personal investment in writing these opinion-driven pieces, referring to the OEP as “freeing” and important in helping one “prioritize her own happiness” above more impersonal, goal-oriented aspects of professional life.

The majority of the day was devoted to “going off the page,” furthering the expansion and empowerment of underrepresented voices by exploring new media platforms, such as TED Talks, TED-Ed, MAKERS, and other interactive visual and spoken presentations in addition to written op-eds. Major highlights of the convening included guest speakers Jordan Reeves and Stephanie Lo of TED-Ed, who came in to talk about their freshly established and already viral online platform for educational material, make current TED content usable for educators, a project similar to Khan Academy. Jordan and Stephanie encouraged scholars to contribute to TED-Ed and continue the diversification of ideas in the vibrant and constantly expanding TED community.

At around noon, Katie popped in for a surprise visit!

Filmmaker Mary Olive also spoke with the scholars, introducing them to her Emmy award winning work “A Walk to Beautiful,” about women who suffer from childbirth injuries in Ethiopia, as well as “Fixing the Future,” her current work in progress. She also advised scholars on how best to present their ideas and conduct themselves on television and film, including advice on language, energy, appearance, how to create a sound bite and how to be cited in documentaries as an expert.

The session concluded with a peer panel, with scholars sharing their experience in writing, pitching and public appearances. A special point was made to address the underlying structure a female academic must operate within—balancing work, family and other commitments—a much discussed issue throughout the session, and improving this structure by increasing the recognition of the merit of such forays into the public forum as Op-ed writing, thus paving the way for a smoother and more powerful entrance into public venues for future women.

[Fordham scholars, hard at work]

Lastly, an idea for a new app was proposed—the “i-Pitch”—to everyone’s delight.

At the end of the day, scholars came away with a productive exchange of thoughts, a flurry of ideas for potential TED-Eds and Op-eds and a great sense of anticipation for the coming months.

[the staff]

The Byline Survey Report, 2012: Who Narrates the World?

Who Narrates The World?

For the last three years, The OpEd Project has conducted a Byline Survey to get a sense of who is getting heard in public discourse.  We are primarily interested in the ideas and the individuals that are driving resources and talent, public policy and opinion.  In other words, we are interested in who narrates the world.  On a practical level we are interested in commentary forums because they predict leadership and thought leadership at the highest levels in all fields.  We see commentary as the beginning of a larger conversation about influence.

Over the last few years we have explored demographic data including gender, race, education, and income level.  The following are the results of our most recent research, which evaluated over 7,000 opinion articles in 10 media outlets over a 12 week period from 9/15/11 to 12/7/11.  We categorized articles by media type (New, Legacy, College), publication, the author’s status as staff or not staff, and subject.  This current release of data focuses in particular on gender.  After all of that hard work, I’m glad to say that we have some fascinating results to share with you.

The table below shows the proportion of total articles written by women in New Media (The Huffington Post and Salon), Legacy Media (NY Times, Washington Post, LA Times, and the Wall Street Journal), and College Media (Columbia, Harvard, Princeton, and Yale).   As you can see, women were far more active in New Media than in Legacy Media (33% vs 20%).   This was expected because, in general, women are more active online than men are.  If these numbers are depressing, be heartened by the 38% contribution of articles by women in College Media.

 

The Good News

The good news is that we have seen major improvements in women’s op-ed writing in the last 6 years (and notably in the last 4.5 years since The OpEd was founded).  Overall we have seen approximately a 6 percentage point increase in some of the nation’s top commentary outlets in traditional media.  This represents a 40 percent increase for women compared to women’s representation 6 years ago.  For three specific data points, when comparing the 2012 Byline Survey to Howard Kurtz’ and James Rainey’s numbers in 2005 (1)(2), we see increases of 5 percentage points in the New York Times, 9 percentage points in the Washington Post, and 4 points in the LA Times.

These are extraordinary improvements that should not be glossed over.

We should also be heartened by the increase of women’s presence in new media opinion forums.  It has been much remarked that the internet and the new media landscape has a democratizing effect: there is a potential for many new voices to be heard, including more womens voices.  However, when we begin to unravel these basic statistics things become much more complicated.

Who is Writing What?

New media dynamics allow us to choose information and produce information in our own images — and this has a particular significance to women.  As you can see in the charts below, in both legacy media and new media, women authored far more articles on subjects that women have traditionally written about (we call them Pink Topics), and significantly fewer than men on every general interest subject aside from the subject of health in new media (women wrote 53%).

Before going any further, I must point out that we don’t consider “pink” topics any less important than general topics.  We are simply isolating this content in an attempt to gain a better sense of how women are contributing to the general public discourse and to observe the extent to which women have broken out of the pink silo that they have historically been confined to.

In new media, women wrote proportionally far more of the pink articles than they did in legacy media (e.g., 40% of food articles in legacy vs. 67% in new media), but women also wrote a higher proportion of articles on every other subject, with the exception of national politics, which was 20% for both new and legacy media.

Some of the numbers in legacy media were especially dreary.  The worst, in my mind, was that just 11% of economics articles in legacy media were written, or co-written, by a woman.  In new media, that number was a less grim, but still sad, 19%.  It’s true that this number is, at least in part, a result of a higher number of men in economics.  In fact, only 9% of economics doctorates were awarded to women in 1974, but the number has been steadily on the rise, reaching 32% in 2003.  Not only is this 11% figure not representative of women in general, but it is not representative of women in the field of economics. (3)

The Four F’s: Food, Fashion, Family, Furniture

In New Media, women wrote 33% of all articles, but they contributed just 26% of all general interest articles.  This is due to the fact that 34% of the articles that women wrote about were on Pink topics. (*)

In the Legacy Media chart below, we see that the numbers of Pink topic articles are nearly equal (men 34, women 37), but these numbers belie the disparities in the distribution of output.  The 34 articles that men wrote constitute just 3% of their total output; compare that to the 12.4% that Pink topics composed in women’s total output.

Put another way, out of 1,410 general interest articles (politics, economy, health, education, etc.) women wrote only 261!  Ouch.

New Media proved to be a bit different, in that there were significantly more women writing, and even though they wrote a higher percentage of Pink Topic articles, they also wrote a higher percentage of general interest articles.  In the New Media outlets that we documented, 34% of women’s writing was on Pink Topics.  When we remove for that subject area, we find that, even though women composed 33% of all articles in New Media, they contributed just 26% of general interest articles.

The Media Landscape

Ever wonder how op-eds fit into the broader news-media world?  I do.  So, to prepare for the Byline Survey final results, I felt the need to get a better sense of the broader news media environment and the ways in which op-eds are situated within it.  Today we’ll take a look at statistics on the production and consumption of news in legacy and new media.

MEDIA PRODUCTION

On the production end of the news I tried to answer these questions:

- Who is writing?

- What are they writing about?

- Who is playing what role (experts, spokespersons, or sources)?

LEGACY MEDIA 

Each year the American Society of Newspaper Editors conducts a survey of newspaper staff demographics.  In 2011, 847 of 1,405 daily newspapers (58% of the national total) responded to this survey. The report revealed significant disparities in race and gender.  According to this report, “441 newspapers responding to the ASNE census had no minorities on their full-time staff”.

Below is the demographic composition of the 41,600 full-time staff journalists working at the surveyed newspapers.

Women: 15,400 (approximately) = 37%   (minorities: 19.3% of women)

Caucasian women:  30% of all staff journalists

Minority women: 7% of all staff journalists

Men: 26,300 (approximately) = 63%   (minorities: 10.8% of men)

Caucasian Men: 56%

Minority men: 7%

* Keep in mind that according to the US Census 36% of the population are minorites.

In 2010, the Global Media Monitoring Project conducted a survey on the contributions of women to news media in 108 countries.   Among other things, they examined the topics that women contribute to in newspapers, television, and radio and the ways in which they contribute to them.  Although GMMP has charted significant gains since its first study in 1995, they have held to their original observation:

“In no medium, region, or news topic did the female-male ratio approach parity.  Women’s visibility in the news was extremely and uniformly low.”

Interestingly enough, the 2010 GMMP findings on the distributions in topic matter contributions mirrored that of the OpEd Project research.  The chart below illustrates this tendency for women to contribute least to politics and economics, more to health, art, and education, and most to Pink Topics.

The chart below shows that as age increased both sexes were more likely to be utilized as experts.  Beginning at the age of 19 men were at least 11% more likely to act as experts and the gender gap increased with age.  The gap culminates in the age group of 65 or older, when men appear as experts 68% points more often than women do.  In this age group a woman is almost as likely to be used in the role of expert than a young man in the 13 to 18 age group.

NEW MEDIA

In the digital realm there are fewer statistics on new media production due to its decentralized and sprawling nature.

Enter The Gender Report!  The Gender Report has tracked gender representation in online news outlets* for the last 10 months by looking at one lead article in each of eight websites once a week.  They found that in the first 9 months of their survey women made up 38% of authors and 25% of sources.

I’ve also taken a look at blogging activity to get a sense of the gender balance of new media output.  A 2010 Technorati survey found that bloggers are predominantly male and more affluent and educated than the general population:

• 2/3 of bloggers are male.
• 79% have college degrees / 43% have graduate degrees
• 1/3 have a household income of $75K+
• 1/4 have a household income of $100K+

Researchers at Northwestern University found that in general, men are far more likely than women to share their work (be it writing, photos, videos) online, but when they controlled for “self-reported digital literacy” the gender gap disappeared.   The researchers concluded that the disparity was a result of “self perceived skill levels”.

MEDIA CONSUMPTION

On the consumption end of the news I tried to find the demographics of traditional and new media readership.  I would expect the contributors to an outlet to be reflections of the audience.

LEGACY MEDIA

A 2003 study that examined newspaper readership correlations with age, residence, education, gender, and income concluded that, “The fraction of variation in readership accounted for by demographics is small, indicating that newspapers have a broad reach across demographic groups.”   In most of the newspaper markets that they studied, length of residence and age were found to be the strongest predictors.  These two variables were followed by income, which had a small, though positive association with readership.  There was almost no variation accounted for by education and gender.

NEW MEDIA

According to the Women’s Media Center, in 2009 men made up 48.2% of the overall Internet population.  Projections show that by 2013, men will only make up 47.9% of Internet users.

As for the new media outlets that we have been tracking, 52% of The Huffington Post audience is female.  Caucasians are disproportionately represented, making up 79% of all readers.  It has recently added blog categories especially for blacks, Latinos, and LGBT voices, so I suspect those numbers will rise in the near future.  65% of their audience is college educated.  Salon’s audience is 56% male, overwhelmingly Caucasian (84%), and highly educated (72% are college educated).

In these two examples we do find a relationship.  According to our research, men have written about 64% of the articles at the Huffington Post and 78% at Salon.  When the final analysis of the Byline Survey is completed, we will be able to see whether or not women contribute more to the Huffington Post in all subjects, or whether they simply write more Pink Topics.

Huffington Post

Salon

The OpEd Project continues to conduct its own Byline Survey and we will soon be delving into the class, race, and education of op-ed writers.  Stay tuned!

* As a reminder, “Pink” topics are the topical spheres that compose what some media critics refer to as the “pink ghetto” because women have historically been confined within them.

We’ve defined a Pink Topic as:  1.) anything that falls into what was once known as “the four F’s”: food, family (relationships, children, sex), furniture (home), and fashion, 2.) women-focused subject matter, e.g. woman-specific health or culture, 3.) gender / women’s issues, or 4.) a profile of a woman or her work in which her gender is a significant issue of the piece.

–  by Taryn Yaeger

(1) Howard Kurtz:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12722-2005Mar6.html

(2) James Rainey: http://articles.latimes.com/2005/mar/11/entertainment/et-estrich11

(3) Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics (NCES); Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System(IPEDS) Completions, 1995-2009 (Washington , D.C.: NCES, 2011)

Who is Talking About What?

In the latest version of the Byline survey (September to December, 2011), we broke down op-eds by gender, staff/non-staff, outlet, and subject in an effort to gain a more precise picture of the op-ed writing environment.  I don’t mind admitting that the results were fascinating.

As you can see in the charts below, in both legacy media and new media, women authored far more articles on subjects that women have traditionally written about (Pink Topics), and significantly fewer than men on every general interest subject aside from the subject of health in new media (women wrote 53%).

In new media, women wrote proportionally far more of the pink articles than they did in legacy media (e.g., 40% of food articles in legacy vs. 67% in new media), but women also wrote a higher proportion of articles on every other subject, with the exception of national politics, which was 20% for both new and legacy media.

Some of the numbers in legacy media were especially dreary.  The worst, in my mind, was that just 10% of economics articles in legacy media were written, or co-written, by a woman.  In new media, that number was a less grim, but still sad, 19%.

It’s true that this low 10% figure is, in large part, a result of a higher number of men in economics.  In fact, only 9% of economics doctorates were awarded to women in 1974, but the number has been steadily on the rise, reaching 27% by 2000.  So, not only is this 10% figure not representative of women in general, but it is not representative of women in the field of economics.

If you would like more information on these statistics, please write me (Taryn), at taryn@theopedproject.org

 

 

Donna Gimther, Shulamit Kahn.  Women in Economics: Moing Up or Falling off the Academic Career Ladder.  Journal of Economic Perspective – Volume 18, Number 3 – Summer 2004, pg. 193

The OpEd Project at Yale School of Medicine

FAIR numbers

When we at The OpEd Project hear about new media and op-ed diversity research, our ears perk up.   This is because statistics and documentation work help us to understand the extent and nature of the problem, so that we can better position ourselves to solve it.

“And what is the problem”, you ask?  According to a study released last month by FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting), white men contributed 82% of op-eds in the Wall Street Journal, 74% in the New York Times and 71% in the Washington Post, even though they compose just 32% of the population.

Now, let’s be clear – we want to hear from white men, but we also want to hear from everybody else, and that is not happening.  For example, the FAIR survey found that, “Though Latinos make up 16 percent of the U.S. population, they were granted less than half a percent of the op-ed bylines at the nation’s top newspapers.”  (I actually winced when I read that.)  Women of color fared just about 1% better, topping out at 2% in the New York Times.  (See the results below.)

The OpEd Project continues to conduct its own Byline Survey and we will soon be delving into the class, race, and education of op-ed writers.  Stay tuned!

Source: Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting, April 2012 (They studied three major newspapers over a two-month period of September and October 2011.)

OEP Office Happenings…

Last month in Chicago…

Michele Weldon and Katie Orenstein busy at work during their break!

OpEd Project Experienced!

When Barbara Field gave her pitch on the OpEd Project at a Publishers & Writers of San Diego venue in Carlsbad, I found an immediate fit.

From that introduction, I did not see the OpEd Project’s charter as one limited to women who want to expand their voice into the written media, but more broadly as an opportunity to all under-represented voices to participate in a broader national dialog (and hopefully international in the future) to drive change through the power of ideas.

During my participation in the “Write to Change the World” seminar, right about page 8 of my hand written notes I can see a big note in “font 42” capital letters that reads: “THIS IS AN EMPOWERMENT CLASS”.  I found that as a Hispanic immigrant the internal voices of doubt, humility, fear of failure and others are voices that are common to other Op-Ed Project participants. The program is not a recipe, but it brings awareness that rather than letting the internal voices become excuses that silence the message, they are simply considerations to be addressed in the construction of an active dialog. The program provides a strong motivation and a roadmap to change ones relationship with power and authority from one of fear to one of social responsibility and participation.

For me the greatest potential of the OpEd program is still to be realized, and I have great hopes that it will materialize. I will participate in the mentor program and intend to reach publication within the next few months. The path forward is now clearer and the spark that ignites the participation in a broader dialog has been ignited.

Agustin Balaguer is a Hispanic immigrant to the US who is fascinated to find and explore what made and makes the US a world leader and a great country to live in. Immigrant roots go back in both branches of his family as far as the early 1900’s. Agustin is a 2004 Sloan Fellow from MIT, holds a BSc in Electrical Enginering and works as a Senior Strategy Manager for a semiconductor company in San Diego, CA.

What’s Happening Today at OEP HQ – May 16, 2012

A little glimpse into what’s happening at the OEP office:

Katie, Kim and Michele in the office, scheming growth strategies and watching Michele’s Moth video.

Office Madness!

Princeton’s 3rd Convening: Adventures in Film

Yesterday Princeton’s Public Voices Fellowship Program held their 3rd convening on the gorgeously green Princeton University campus. At the helm were three incredible OpEd Project teachers: Courtney Martin, Michele Weldon, and Deborah Siegel.

From left: Princeton scholar April Alliston, Michele Weldon, Courtney Martin, Deborah Seigel, Princeton scholar Jill Dolan, and Princeton Scholar Betsy Armstrong

The focus of the day was on furthering the fellows’ ability to contribute to important national conversations not only through writing, but also on teaching them how to adapt their arguments to other media platforms. Publishing in print is still a great way to get ideas into wide circulation, but in an increasingly technological world there is a growing community of internet-savvy users who are interested in receiving information though visual and aural presentations.

Our leaders suggested diversifying the types of media platforms the scholars use to spread their thoughts by appearing on television or radio as an expert source, giving a TED Talk, or tempering pure information with personal storytelling for a spoken piece on a program like The Moth or This I Believe. Below is a clip of PVF leader Michele Weldon sharing a story at The Moth Grandslam in Chicago:

To this end, we were joined by two phenomenal filmmakers. The first, Mary Olive Smith, has spent the last fifteen years directing, producing, and writing prime-time documentaries for major television broadcasters including the Discovery Channel, National Geographic Channels, History Channel and PBS. Her documentary “A Walk to Beautiful” won an EMMY in 2009. She spent the day filming interviews with the fellows about their research, writing, and their experience of claiming a voice in the public realm.

Also with us was Susan Hoostein, whose work as Creative Director on the AOL/PBS initiative Makers:Women Who Have Shaped America is bringing some of the nation’s most inspiring women to the screen.

Susan Hoostein (at center in white) addressing the Princeton Fellows

The project will serve as a living library, cataloging the stories, reflections and triumphs told by some of the most extraordinary women of today: writers, CEOs, teachers, diplomats, scientists, philanthropists, journalists, entrepreneurs, advocates, survivors and entertainers. The web platform, MAKERS.COM serves as an expansion of an AOL sponsored PBS 3-part series airing in early 2013. She shared some of the footage from this incredible endeavor to illustrate the impact of ideas shared through film.

Said Hoostein, making a verbal argument on camera involves being mindful of many factors that aren’t at play in opinion writing. She said that even as you try to verbally articulate a particular idea, you have to simultaneously be thinking about how your interview will be edited. You also have to think about how what you’re saying will be used– just as with making comments to the print media, when giving an interview on film you have to be clear about what is on and off the record.

When it came to talking about live video opportunities, the PVF team leaders made sure to mention the pressures inherent in appearing on live TV ,a format  in which interviewees must be prepared to speak only on the record and without the option of editing out blunders.

But, as both Hoostein and the team leaders emphasized, even though the immediacy and intimacy of video can be an intimidating factor, it is also what gives ideas shared through film such a punch. Your message can acquire a profound gravity when it comes directly from you without the mediator of the written word.

In addition, mixed media productions offer exciting creative opportunities that you might not find anywhere else. The Story of Stuff, below, is a great example:

Moral of the story, don’t stop at the op-ed. Getting published on a regular basis is a fantastic way to contribute your ideas for public consumption, but if you really want to reach the most people possible, consider alternate forms of media. Get creative, exercise your ability to use images in furthering your argument, hone your ability to verbally articulate your arguments on film. I, for one, literally cannot wait to see what our scholars produce in the coming months.

Greetings from the new Public Voices Fellowship intern

Hello all–

My name is Xueli Wang and I am excited to step in for Ravenna Koenig as the Public Voices Fellow this summer at The OpEd Project. Ever since entering college and being introduced to the world of academia, I have become increasingly more interested in bridging the gap between theoretical, field-specific knowledge and the real world–a common source of frustration in the university. Imagine my delight then, when I discovered that the OpEd Project’s Public Voices Fellowship program has been here all along, with its office located only a few subway stops away! Before I dive in though, let me tell you a little bit about myself:

I am a rising senior at Columbia University, majoring in Art History and concentrating in Philosophy. I have been living in New York City for the past eleven years, and before that, I spent a wondrous childhood in Guangzhou, a city in Southern China. In addition to working at the OEP this summer, I will also be hosting numerous interviews with scholars, filmmakers and other visual artists around the world as the Arts department head at WKCR 89.9 FM, Columbia radio. In my free time, I’ll be reading alot of philosophy and watching many many films, as well as improving my French in preparation for going to Paris in the fall, where I’ll be participating in an intensive filmmaking program at the EICAR film school. I am above all interested in the intersection between culture and social activism, and hope to be involved in both after graduating Columbia in 2013.

A summer with the OEP promises productive, enlightening, invigorating conversations, projects and relationships, and I write with great anticipation for the coming days.