The male presence

Abstract

Male domination of the news media begins, very simply, with numerical superiority. The male presence in the news industry is immense and far‐reaching. Ninety‐four percent of top management positions in U.S. news media are occupied by men. The top five executives at Capital Cities, ABC, Times Mirror, CBS, Knight‐Ridder, the New York Times, and Turner Broadcasting System are all men. The boards of directors of these same corporate media outlets are also virtually all male. More than three‐quarters of all network reports are filed by men. And only 27 percent of front‐page bylines in ten major newspapers were women's. A study of the New York Times op‐ed page found that 87 percent of the 309 opinion pieces by outside contributors during the first half of 1989 (excluding Sundays) were written by men. Male numerical domination of the industry is accompanied by similar domination in the roles of both sources and subjects. We can illustrate this through our study of ABC's “Nightline.” We paid particular attention to who appeared as guests on the program. These guests play the mixed role of source and commentator, telling viewers both what the news is and how to understand it. An analysis of who appears in the news can tell us a great deal about the news product viewers ultimately receive. We analyzed the transcripts from forty months of “Nightline” (January 1985 through June 1988), which included 865 programs and 2,498 guests. We coded each program by topic and each guest on a variety of dimensions, including gender. We were interested in the context in which male and female guests appear, the kinds of men who appear regularly, and the effect this has on the journalistic enterprise. Our study shows that the news is interpreted almost entirely by men. All 19 of the guests who appeared more than five times in the forty‐month period were men. And 68 of the 74 guests who appeared alone on “Nightline” were men. Of the 2,498 guests in this period, 2,239, or 90 percent, were men. Nine out of ten guests who discussed international affairs, domestic politics, or the economy were men. The only time this figure dropped substantially was on programs about social issues (e.g., health, education, religion, or family). Still, on these programs 80 percent of the guests were men. On the other hand, 41 percent of all women who appeared on the program did so on programs about social issues, and only 22 percent appeared on programs about international issues. The figures for men were roughly the opposite. The analysis of international affairs is almost the exclusive property of men, whereas women are relegated to discussions of traditionally “female” social issues. Men also appear earlier in the program and are given more opportunity to speak. In the rare instances when women did appear on “Nightline,” they were likely to be responding to agendas that had been framed by the male guests who appeared earlier. The “Nightline” guest list is not stratified simply by gender. On the contrary, only certain types of men have regular access to the major news media. By excluding some men, the news media help signal “appropriate” or “sanctioned” gender and political roles for men. The news, by taking some perspectives seriously and largely ignoring others, can help constitute an “ideal” male identity. First, the ideal man is an elite, white man. More than 92 percent of the guests from the United States were white, and 80 percent of the guests were government officials, professionals, or corporate representatives. People of color and nonelites appeared only rarely on the program. Those representatives of labor and public‐interest organizations who did appear on “Nightline” were twice as likely as government officials, professionals, or corporate representatives to be women. This suggests that access to “Nightline” and other media is structured by the intersection of gender, race, and class. Women and people of color are rarely seen, and the voices of white working‐class or poor men, or their representatives, are also rarely heard. Second, this ideal male displays a high degree of respect for government policymakers. “Nightline” only rarely featured appearances by potential dissenters. Only 6 percent of the guests represented labor, public‐interest organizations, or racial/ethnic organizations. Even those white men with elite credentials who hold strongly critical positions may have little access to programs such as “Nightline.” While white male, former government officials make for prime “Nightline” guests, critics who fit this profile—such as former attorney general Ramsey Clark, former CIA station chief John Stockwell, former ambassador Robert White, and former Pentagon planner Daniel Ellsberg—were absent from the guest list. Ultimately, programs such as “Nightline” bring viewers interpretations of the world largely from elite, white men who do not challenge the status quo.