Guest blogger Paul Talbot responds to the August 4, “Women In News” blog:
You made some solid points in your blog “Women in News,” but there may be more to the picture than you describe.
Editorial positions boil down to ownership.
Coverage decisions boil down to news judgment.
Editors exercise this judgment as art while algorithms lean on science.
So, rather than male vs. female, we might consider editor vs. algorithm.
This leaves us to wonder if the time-honored “nose for news” instinct, a legitimate art laced with alchemy, may be sensitized somewhat differently for women.
Perhaps this depends on the story.
One would think the preeminent story of our times, climate change, would be evaluated and covered much the same by men and women.
My hunch is that sizing up the merits of which stories to cover, and how they should be covered, the angle and the slant, are driven less by gender and more by outlooks, philosophies and inclinations.
And let’s not forget that women don’t corner the market on empathy.
Male columnists have proven themselves quite adept at empathy and emotion, from O’Henry to Breslin and Royko.
Sure, Noonan and Dowd rule the roost these days. But the male columnist capable of bringing a tear to your eye or bringing your blood to a boil is hardly a rarity.
So, this cracks open another question.
What exactly is news management?
In so many ways, the coverage of news simply can’t be managed.
News is quicksilver. It races along down random roads with unknown destinations.
Sometimes a story erupts and sometimes it slowly boils.
Whatever the case, news coverage often tends to be more of a reactive than a proactive exercise.
At best, the strategic planks of news management embrace anticipation and preparation for the unknown.
Are women better at designing and guiding this process than men?
Who knows?
The uncertainties of news may tilt the scales towards women, who seem to be more comfortable with ambiguity.
But it may be helpful to consider all this in terms of the specific story.
How well the story is understood, its implications, its truths, the context in which it is placed, the tenacity of the reporter, the encouragement and support of the editor, resources made available, the ability to find the right source, to ask the right question, and the skills to polish an untidy collection of raw materials into something cogent and compelling.
May the best person take the helm.
Or may the best male-female combo take the helm such as Katharine Graham and Ben Bradlee.
Media Curmudgeon responds:
In the “Women In News” blog I wrote:
What will it mean in the future that more and more women and women of color are heading news organizations? Will the news coverage and agendas change? If Kamala Harris is the Democratic presidential nominee in 2024 or 2028, will editorial endorsements change?
In terms of news coverage, I think news coverage, especially local news coverage, will change. More coverage of issues such as the child tax credit, evictions and the affordable housing crisis will increase in news organizations headed by women, and we’re likely to see less horse-race political coverage.
You made the point that: “My hunch is that sizing up the merits of which stories to cover, and how they should be covered, the angle and the slant, are driven less by gender and more by outlooks, philosophies and inclinations.” I have no major disagreement with this statement with the exception of more coverage being given by female editors to the issues mentioned above.
However, I believe that the main reason that more and more women are being named head of news operations is because women are generally better managers of people than men are.
In my view the biggest challenge in newsrooms is not how to cover the news, but how manage increasingly young, diverse, tech-savvy, Twitter-addicted newsrooms.
For example, had a woman been editor-in-chief of the NY Times when the Tom Coton opinion piece, “Send In the Troops,” was pubished June 3, 2020, would she have been able to broker peace between NY Times younger staffers who felt threatened by the Cotton piece and Editorial Page Editor James Bennet, who was fired on June 7?
Of course, we’ll never know this counterfactual, but it’s certainly conceivable that a woman might have been able to avoid the cancel-culture outcome of Bennet’s firing.
Had there been a female publisher or editor-in-chief at the NY Time in June 2020, would there have been an Intelligence Squared podcast debate on July 30, “Has the New York Times Lost Its Way?”
