Women Are Finally Making Headway in News Media Leadership

When Rashida Jones, current Vice President of NBC Universal, succeeds retiring Phil Griffin to become President of MSNBC next month, she will be the first woman of color to lead a major cable news network. In 2019, Susan Zirinsky became the first woman to serve as President of CBS News, and Suzanne Scott was named CEO of Fox News in 2018, replacing the disgraced Roger Ailes. Following closely behind these changes in network leadership and the change in presidential administrations, there have also been notable promotions and expanded air time for women at other major news organizations, reflecting a much needed step toward gender balance in the broadcast/cable news industry.

Hallie Jackson in her role as an NBC news correspondent during an anti-Trump protest on June 21, 2016. Photo credit: Delanothord [CC BY-SA 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons.

As in most, if not all, other industries, women have typically been underrepresented in news media. Geraldine Moriba, then a JSK Journalism Fellow at Stanford and now an executive producer at CNN and the vice president of diversity and inclusion for CNN Worldwide, wrote in a September 2020 Medium piece, “We find female-presenting faces are on screen about 29% of the time. Male-presenting faces are on screen 61% of the time (a 2.1-to-1 male-to-female ratio). There is a steady movement toward gender parity over the decade (the 2.4-to-1 male-to-female screen time ratio in 2010 dropped to 1.9-to-1 in 2020), but the rate of change is slow. These results reinforce prior observations of the under-representation of women in news media.”

Now, less than one year after that article was written, things are looking up. In addition to the network leadership changes of the last few years, women at major networks are stepping into more prominent anchor and correspondent roles.

Most notable is the change in who we will be hearing from at, and about, the White House. During the Trump administration, there was only one woman acting as a network Chief White House Correspondent, NBC’s Hallie Jackson. Now, at the start of the Biden administration, there are four, two of whom are women of color. ABC, CBS, and CNN have all replaced men with women, including CNN's Kaitlan Collins, who is one of the youngest Chief White House Correspondents at a major network at just 28.

There will also be more women anchors on both CNN and Fox News. At CNN, Dana Bash will join Jake Tapper as co-anchor of “State of the Union”, and senior White House correspondent Pamela Brown is anchoring a news and analysis show on weekends. Abby Phillip, a woman of color, now has her own show, “Inside Politics with Abby Phillip”, during the political news show Sunday morning sweet spot. At Fox News, women will have more air time as Harris Faulkner, who was hosting two hours in the afternoon, adds a third hour in the morning, and Dana Perino will co-anchor with Bill Hemmer in a new-two hour morning show. At NBC/MSNBC, Hallie Jackson, who has been named senior White House correspondent, will continue to host the 10 am hour on MSNBC and is preparing for a new program for Peacock, NBC’s streaming service.

These changes, both at the corporate level and on air, along with the record number of women in the Biden administration, are important steps toward gender balance. More women and girls will see themselves in leadership positions in multiple government agencies and in those reporting on them. The stories the news media shares should reflect a broader perspective and more resonance to the half of the population. It’s a trend that needs to continue in major news sources, and we hope it trickles down to the local level as well.

If you haven’t already, download the GA Tally app and keep tabs on your local news sources. Tally the number of men and women reporting the news in your area. Keep track of how much talk time women are getting and share the results far and wide. The slow slog toward equality in the media is beginning to pay off, so the work must continue, and it’s up to GenderAvengers like you to keep it going.