PressEthic

According to an article in the New York Times, Ruth Davis Konigsberg, a deputy editor at Glamour, has been counting bylines in several "top general-interest magazines" and has found that there are far fewer bylines of women than men.

Ruth Davis Konigsberg, a deputy editor at Glamour, began counting bylines in Harper's, The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair and The Atlantic Monthly. Since the beginning of September, she has tallied 324 male bylines and 99 female ones. She has displayed the results on a Web site, www.womenTK.com

Konigsberg says she's merely starting an "interesting conversation" about the gender imbalance and feels that someone should be keeping track of the phenomenon.

And then there's a group of people who are trying to bring some balance back..

Sheila Gibbons cites Konigsberg's informal study of bylines in her piece on the WOMENSENEWS website, adding that the imbalance is present in television as well. She says that female guests on news programs are far fewer than male guests. But the main point of her commentary is to point out that editors, reporters and producers can no longer use the excuse that they were unable to locate female experts on any subject:

The White House Project, the Women's Funding Network and Fenton Communications in October launched a Web site, SheSource.org, that includes a database of female experts and leaders in a variety of fields, including those in which women are often overlooked for comment, such as national security, the economy and international affairs.

Among them are Liz Ann Sonders, chair of the investment strategy council for the investment brokerage Charles Schwab and Co. Inc.; retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Claudia Kennedy; Dr. Johanna Mendelson-Forman, senior program officer for peace, security and human rights at the U.N. Foundation; nationally recognized crime expert Linda Fairstein; and former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Maria Echaveste.

"Bookers have told us that they are looking for diverse voices and viewpoints for their programs," said Lisa Witter, general manager of Fenton Communications, in a statement announcing the launch of SheSource. "SheSource will simply expand their Rolodex and make it easy for them to book qualified guests from a more diverse pool of candidates."

Eventhough these particular articles don't attempt to investigate or explain the imbalance, it's still good to know that people are noticing and actually doing something about it. Perhaps the rolodex will help.