Nightline’s Cynthia McFadden on the
campaign trail with Sen. Hillary Clinton,
running for re-election in 2006.
Access is vital for any journalist. Beyond the kidnapping
episode, FOX’s Griffin says gender is universally more of
an advantage in the Middle East than an obstacle, even in
cultures in which women are treated, even on a good day, as
second-class citizens.
“If you listen well to the men there, you can ask stronger
and tougher questions than [your] male colleagues,” says
Griffin, in between assignments in Baghdad. “The men here
perceive U.S. women as a curiosity. We catch them off guard,
in a way. They find us fascinating. So they want to teach us all
about their long traditions of honor and culture. And, in fact,
I’ll get more access than the men reporters do. I can go into a
home in Iraq and interview a woman who lives there. A man
cannot walk into a woman’s house alone—her brothers would
be outraged and may get violent.”
VISIBLE STARS
Recent studies reveal that viewers are getting more of a
woman’s perspective in all network news these days, not just
from those who broadcast from the Middle East. It’s a gender
representation that leaves much room for improvement,
but it still surpasses that of other high-profile circles of our
society. After all, in 1981, Sandra Day O’Connor became the
first woman on the Supreme Court—five years after Barbara
Walters became the first female network news co-anchor. It’s
taken until this year to have a female speaker of the House,
and female representation in Congress remains just over 16
percent. And although it’s only been a year since Katie Couric
became the country’s first solo female news anchor, the profile of women in TV news has eclipsed these gradual but small
shifts in female representation. About 28 percent of stories
on nightly network newscasts are reported by women—more
than double the percentage of stories reported by women
in 1990, according to the Washington-based
Center for Media and Public Affairs. And on
your local news, the profile of women is even
greater, at about 40 percent, according to the
Radio-Television News Directors Association.
Lodato says more women are in the
classroom, too, and estimates the ratio in his
broadcasting classes is about 3-to- 1 in favor
of women. “I’ve had some classes that are
entirely female,” he says. “There’s no doubt
the scale is tipping in broadcast journalism.
And I think it has a direct correlation to the
success we’re seeing by female journalists on a
national level, and the ‘I can do that’ attitude.
It’s very healthy, and the news consumer is the
ultimate beneficiary.”
For Candy Crowley, CNN’s award-
winning senior political correspondent, an
off-putting remark by President Ronald Reagan helped
frame her perspective for audiences in matters of gender,
politics and journalism. She was covering Reagan’s 1984 re-
election campaign—a woman joining what author Timothy
Crouse famously characterized as “The Boys on the Bus.”
Crowley has been a campaign veteran ever since, covering
George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Howard
Dean, Bob Dole, Jesse Jackson, John Kerry and others. But
in the beginning, during a speech, Reagan likened single-
motherhood to a societal ill. This struck Crowley as funny.
She was, after all, a single mom.
“I put that out there,” Crowley recalls, speaking to Reagan’s remark, “and I let the American people react to it as they
saw fit. I didn’t interject my opinion or make more of it than I
should have. That wouldn’t have been journalistically fair.”
The value of a woman’s observation extends to TV pun-ditry, as well, where objectivity is only second to the need for
a laser-focused examination of the issues. Gwen Ifill,
Washington Week moderator for PBS, recalls a recent week when
women filled her entire panel, and says women have come so
far that gender is practically a non-issue.
“We had one reporting on Iraq from ABC, and a political reporter from The Wall Street Journal on Senator Barack
Obama, and two others,” she says. “While I was hosting the
show, I looked around and it finally hit me that our lineup
was all women. And it’s not the first time this has happened;
it’s the third or fourth time. It’s not anything the production
team and I ever set out to do. It’s just the way it ends up happening. At first, we got some negative mail like, ‘What’s up
with having a hen party on your show?’ Now, it doesn’t raise
any criticisms from viewers. If anything, there’s a positive
feeling about having smart women talking intelligently about
the issues of the day. Without shoving it down the viewers’
