Men Still Report the Bulk of Our Elections Coverage
We appear to be on the verge of entering an election that hinges on women’s political engagement, yet our press corps is largely male
Since the start of the Trump administration, politics has been women’s work — but you wouldn’t know it from the men who cover the news. Women did the bulk of the day-to-day activism and organizing against Trump throughout his first term. It was female voters who propelled Democrats to victory in the midterms, and it was female Democrats who dominated those very electoral contests. And we now have more women running for president than at any recorded point in history. Yet 66 percent of the reporters assigned to cover “international news and politics” for major newspapers are men, according to a new report from the Women’s Media Center.
Drawing from more than 94 studies, the report also found that at newswires like the Associated Press and Reuters, men were credited with 63 percent of elections coverage and 70 percent of political coverage overall. At online news outlets, 74 percent of election news was credited to male journalists.
So, if you’re wondering why female candidates seem to get tougher press coverage than their male counterparts, the answer is actually not hard to figure out…
