The First Amendment; Joan Berman: Feminism and Journalism

The Eastern Public Radio Network in cooperation with the Institute for Democratic Communication at Boston University now presents the First Amendment and the Free People a weekly examination of civil liberties in the media in in the 1970s. The host of the program is the institute's director Dr. Bernard Rubin. [music] [Rubin] I'm very pleased to have as my guest today on this edition Joan Berman. Associate professor of journalism at Boston University and a widely respected and very professional reporter, editor and consultant not only for magazines but for newspapers including the Miami News, the Middlesex News, The Charlotte Observer, Miami Herald, and other other such organs of the Fourth Estate. Right now Joan is one of the fellows of the Institute doing special research on a project to investigate the sexism or the biases against women in the mass media. Now she's uncovered some interesting

findings. And Joan perhaps I'll throw the first question at you rather directly. You, as all other practitioners, knew that there was bias against women in the mass media. You didn't know entirely how much, how many, you knew that some of it applied to you and some of it applied to everybody else in the profession. What have you found out as you began to dig into the research material on the subject? [Berman] Well Bernie I found something very strange. I guess I had always focused inwardly and found that I had certainly my own problems as I was coming along and moving up from being a reporter to being an editor, and tussles with editors along the way. I found I wasn't alone in that I uncovered horror story after horror story of women who had gotten into jobs in newspapers and magazines at entry level. Had never been allowed to wri- ah go beyond that.

When I started looking at organizations like ah the Associated Press managing editors for example which is a group of managing editors from all over the country, there are approximately three women who are members of that organization. When I started analyzing media magazines, highly respected journals such as the Columbia University's um Journalism Review I found that they had really more or less ignored the whole subject of women in journalism for ah the last 15 years that they've been publishing. [Rubin] That's amazing because they supposedly tackled most of the major subjects. [Berman] Well ah for example I came across their major issue where they were they were in rolling in the 70s, it was titled something like "we embark on the 70s" and there were issues of ah ethics and of power and government ah interference and press bar relations and nowhere in this whole list of of the panoply of issues that

was going to confront the press. Was there any mention of women or women's issues, so here this was 1970 and they were completely ignoring the women's movement. Which as it turned out I guess to their astonishment has been one of the major social movements of the year. [Rubin] And yet a great many of the students, a high proportion of the students of the Columbia School of Journalism are women, is that not true? [Berman] Yes it's true and uh in fact it's ah it's an interesting paradox because journalism schools all over the country right now are clogged as we all know no-now with all kinds of students but with very high preponderance of women students. And I'm just wondering where these women are going to go. If you look at uh at the newsrooms of any newspaper across the country now you will see women at entry level jobs, women who are accepted at the lowest levels as as reporters. But when you start getting up into a management level or any level where

someone will supervise somebody else, women have really systematically been shut out of those jobs. [Rubin] What's the situation in the last few years in in publications that you've been looking at, is there more attention to women in journals that are concerned with the profession of reporting? [Berman] Well what's happened in the last few years is fascinating and this again was something that I didn't realize until I started doing my research. And I really pinpoint the beginning of a whole new concentration with Betty Friedan and the publishing of The Feminine Mystique because here was Betty Friedan in the early 60s suddenly saying "women's magazines have been selling us a lie, women's magazines have been referring to women as soft, cute, cuddly creatures and selling them on the idea of being housewives." And maybe there are lots of women out there who don't want to be housewives. And as you know Betty Friedan started organizations like the the National Organization for Women. And this I think was the start of a whole

turning inward of women and focusing on their situation in America. And what happened at the start of the women's movement, as far as the press was concerned, was that the press which is mostly mostly men took it as something to laugh at. And sent out their reporters to to cover the stories with tongue in cheek and started what turned out to be one of the great myths of the women's liberation movement about bra burners, do you know there were never any bra burners, no one ever burned a bra. But there are still editorialists all over the country who refer to this as the bra burning movement. What seemed to happen is that uh as reporters went out covering the women's movement uh two things really happened. The women who were the subjects of these stories began to get very self-conscious about how they were being covered. They were doing something that they felt very strongly about and they no longer wanted to be referred to as the pretty blonde

coed or the soft voiced mother of three. So they began to be very itchy about how in fact they were referred to in the news stories. And then on the other hand the women who themselves were covering the stories, the women reporters, began to get their own consciousnesses raised as they went out and were talking to these women. They'd come back and they start to say "hey you know I'm not in such a terrific position myself, I've been doing the same dumb thing for for five or 10 years. I have nowhere to go in my organization." So in uh the last few years. Uh there's been an an enormous change in how women have been looked at in newspapers in two ways, not only how they've been written about as subjects but also and how they've been treated as employers ?of and? employees of the of the newspapers themselves. [Rubin] That particular phrase, how they are treated, is not generally understood. People think if you have a job on a newspaper that you've made it. But for many years it is true is it not that women have a special category in most newspapers and were distinctively

second class citizens on the staff? [Berman] Absolutely for many many years women were relegated to what is known as the women's pages, now you know when you read papers today they're called by a lot of other names, they may be called the family page or the living today page. In fact I myself had that title once, I was the living editor and I used to make jokes about "where's the death editor?" which I had to deal with but call it by any other name they still are very much the women's pages and on a lot of papers this is really considered the ghetto area. In fact in the Miami Herald that area is called the Bay of Pigs. And and this is where women are put to work to be editors and it's been very difficult for women to get into the con- to cover the kind of beat that automatically means that they're going to go up in the organization to uh cover courts, to cover politics uh, the kind of beat that men respect, you know they don't respect covering food and fashion. They do

respect covering politics. [Rubin] We had in the 50s fine women reporters, isolated examples of people had the opportunities uh although many fine reporters were available like Marguerite Higgins who among other things did some fine coverage of the of the Korean War. But what are some of the horror stories that you uncovered about about women as they - in individual cases who'are at work, who're trying to get to work in the in the media? [Berman] Well I've been told stories about women who uh were professional reporters who had several years experience uh who pleaded to be begged to allowed to cover politics or to cover a riot let's say. And their editors would tell them "oh no you know we don't want to send you there you might get hurt, something uh might happen to you and we would feel responsible" and when they said "please treat me as a professional reporter

you don't have to take any more care of me than you would for for Joe Smith," this was disregarded. I've heard stories of women who have been asked to uh if in the initial interview if they were engaged, which you're really not supposed to do, I think that's that's against federal guidelines to ask if they have any intention of being married or to get pregnant in uh a job interview. I uh in my experience were uh was asked at one point to work under my maiden name since the uh man that I was married to worked for the competing newspaper. And and uh his bosses felt that it wasn't seemly for me to work for for an opposition paper, maybe that made it look as if he wasn't being paid enough or some such thing. I didn't want to work under my maiden name but I really had no choice. I uh had to do it. [Rubin] Now you're very instrumental in in two groups at least of the many that I know

that you work with. One you really are the creative force behind, and that is Women in Communications Management, which is a series of seminars given at Boston University to bring uh women before a faculty, trained faculty, that talks to them about organizational practices, human relations skills and concepts, and consultation on the back home situations. Now your your feeling then I gather is that women are are not anxious to be patient and get the jobs that were denied them but actually that that people like yourself feel that the thing to do now is to leap frog and not only to get the jobs as the reporter but to get the jobs as the editor, to get the jobs as the business manager, to to get jobs as publishers, to start publications, to go the whole road. [Berman] I don't think LeapFrog is exactly what I would call it, what it what what I would like to

see is if women to be given the same initial consideration for management jobs that men have been given and there are a lot of fairy tales still in in the newspaper editors' heads about this, one fairy tale is that a woman won't be with us long enough, they'll get married and they'll leave, or they'll get pregnant and leave or some such. [Rubin] What are the facts, now if that is a fairy tail what are the facts? [Berman] No the facts are that this is in not in fact not true and in a recent book called, I believe, The News People which is a very interesting static-statistical analysis of who journalists are and where they work, It's it's very clear in there that women in fact hold their jobs much longer than men and maybe it wouldn't be so uh good for them if to do that. A lot of men leap from job to job uh constantly seeking to further their position while women tend to stay in the same place uh hoping that someday somebody will see their little light shining and uh they will be recognized. Women uh simply have not been in the line up for consideration of management jobs uh for a long

period of time. And uh we began these seminars that you mention, seminars for women who are interested in going into management positions because we felt that newspapers were really missing out by not having the expertise of trained women, by not having the sensitivity of women available to them. In uh fact the other night I was watching a newspaper show which is on television now called Lou I think the Lou Grant Show, he plays a television uh a newspaper editor, and part of the show they showed a typical news meeting where everybody comes in to bring their stuff what's going to be on page one. And there they were all men just as they are at The Globe in their little, in The Globe's film that you see when you tour it there. And when they have their news meeting there are all the men in their white shirts making the decisions for what's going to go into that day's paper. And my feeling is that maybe they would get a little bit of new and different and valued insight if there was some feminine thought going into those decisions too. [Rubin] A lot of a lot of the

older management types on newspapers, because they are older have been through the developing women's movement without ever catching on to it. Looking forward to their retirements or whatnot. I guess we depend in some measure upon the upcoming group of men and women working together. But I am troubled by what you said before that there are so many women in schools of journalism in communications and it may be that the world that they come out to, even though we may not like it, is still rather unfriendly over the next two or three years, there just aren't that many opportunities. I'd like to ask you about another organization that you're concerned about and a member of, and that's this organization called Women in Communications Inc. Which I was surprised to see started back in 1909 to, among other things, work for a free and responsible press, unite women engaged in all fields of communication, recognize

distinguished achievements of women journalists, maintain high professional standards, and encourage members to greater individual effort. Now it has about 7,000 members. How effective is that kind of an organization? Is it a national organization that has some clout? Is it one that inspires, is it one that informs? Just what's been your own experience with it? Aside from these the shibboleths that are great and I approve of, applaud, do they do these things effectively? [Berman] This is an very interesting organization because it's gone through an enormous amount of changes. When when Women In Communications was founded it was founded as a sorority with a sorority name, it was called Theta Sigma Phi to signify the traditional Greek letters. And when I was initiated as a member in the mid 60s it had a true sorority initiation with candles and we solemnly swore to do something which I don't recall and in the

last 10 years I think the organization has completely turned around and it changed even to the point of changing its name to Women In Communications Incorporated and no longer has candlelight initiations and it is a truly professional organization dedicated to trying to not only further freedom of the press as you mention, but also further the cause of women. They do this in many ways and one of the most active ways is with students, they have campus chapters, there is an active campus chapter at Boston University in fact and there are other campus chapters in other schools in the Boston area. [Rubin] Does anybody in the industry pay attention to it? If you say "I'm going to I'm going to protest and I'm from Women In Communications and we --" do they go to court, do they do they defend individuals? [Berman] Yes they have they've they've The president has testified before congressional committees. There is a monthly magazine, there's a newsletter. They have a convention where they have speakers on a national level, they

give national awards. They're trying to recognize the distinguished achievements of women journalists and they're all, they also have recently begun a very active job seeking branch where they're trying to put together people who who want jobs with organizations who seek women in not only newspapers but also magazines and radio and television. It's an organization that I feel strongly is very valuable for a student to enter in student years because in the contacts that that she can make can be extremely valuable in trying to to get a job later on. [Rubin] What about such organizations as the American Newspaper Publishers Association? Is anybody reaching those people effectively to get the concepts of the women who are leading the journalistic profession over? Do they have to contend, is there any confrontation, is there any meeting of minds in a very practical

manner? Or do Women In Communications Inc. and the American Newspaper Publishers Association, whatever it's inc or not, do they live in separate worlds still? [Berman] Well the American Newspaper Publishers Association is exactly what that what the name says, they are the publishers of daily and weekly newspapers all over the country and as such they they live in a rather rarefied atmosphere. [Rubin] But they control the jobs. [Berman] They they certainly do. They also control money. And and one of the things that we've been trying to do is to is to get them to sponsor and stand behind seminars like our Women in Communications Management seminar and in fact they're very interested in doing that. So I feel some hope there. I think the publishers feel some responsibility for for encouraging young people, men and women who who are any good you know and show some energy to get them into the business.

[Berman] What what other problems do women have in, say, you know in a newspaper? Aside from the physical threat which so many men have protected them from in order to keep them from going out on stories, and aside from being relegated to the women's page, the cooking page, the household page or whatnot, what other problems do they have if they're really talented and have been around for five or ten years? [Berman] Well there's one problem which is sort of interesting to talk about, the problem being of still being considered the sex object no matter how professional you are. Diane White who's a columnist for The Boston Globe wrote a marvelous column about this in the spring in which she described a scene in her newsroom where a young woman came in dressed in news room standards, it was considered provocative, which I think means she was wearing a sleeveless dress and a telephone relay system was set up so that one male editor would call another male editor and alert them to this young young woman's

arrival in the newsroom. And what she was saying was that you know this is a pretty peculiar kind of an atmosphere in which in which a woman has to work you sort of wonder where you know your sex object category ends and your professionalism begins. I think that's a problem that goes away in time you know that once you get up there in years you're not so worried about being considered a sex object anymore, that you probably wish you were. [Rubin] I'm not making any comment, I just happen to be looking at a lovely woman across the table from me. Could you go to another subject and say what you feel about the old stereotypical leaders of certain aspects of the profession, like Helen Gurley Brown and women's magazines. Are there individuals who still get the big play like the Gloria Steinems in certain aspects of the women's movement in the journalistic side itself? We used to read an awful lot about about her and how she was doing wonderful things with with this or that magazine.

Or is the play on such magazines as Ms., where where do we go now? What should what should be our objective to highlight those reporters who are doing a fantastic job, say, covering riots or to highlight reporters who are on small town newspapers or doing things that women never did before? If you had your choice of publicity what would you want to see to push the women in journalistic trends before the American public? [Berman] Well frankly I think that far too much has been written about practitioners of the media and and I think the spotlight should be taken off off reporters and onto to the subject matter out there. But what you're saying brings up another problem that I think would be interesting to explore one of the most common criticisms that feminists have of the press is that the press singles out media

stars, women who look bizarre or who act bizarre, women like Florence Kennedy for example or Germaine Greer, because the press they say is constantly looking for examples of confrontation. They're looking for conflict situations. And what they're saying is that maybe that's not really where the news is and it may be really the news is not in the conflict situation but in the constant compromise and cooperation that goes on. [Rubin] In other words, Germaine Greer has certain minority tastes and interests, ergo women in a sense are all to be blanketed with that particular stereotype without regard to her right to do and write as she pleases. You're saying that they they deliberately look for such types in order to point out that women are not all around good guys as they would say in the newsroom. [Berman] Well I think any journalist will admit that when they when you go out to cover a story the easy way

to get into a story is to look for the conflict situation or to look for the bizarre person that you hope will personify what the whole thing is about, and what a lot of of people involved in the women's movement have told me is that this is really not where the story is. For example in the coverage of International Women's Year in you know the big conference in Mexico a year or so ago there was a lot of flak about the coverage of that story because the media concentrated on microphone fights, you know, one woman trying to to grab airtime from somebody else. And the people who were there said to me that that was not where the story was at all, that it was truly a very significant women's story in terms of you know, if you put it in context and the flow of history of what went on before leading up to this and what could possibly come out of it and it was actually a story of cooperation and not a story of conflict but the press, looking for an easy story to write and a fast headline,

centered on the aspects of conflict. Wilma Scott Heide, who is a former president of the National -- President of the National Organization for Women has talked to me about this and she's one of the women that I interviewed for the research I'm doing for the Institute. And her feeling is that the whole idea of conflict is a very masculine idea. And. And that's really not where it's at at all and if women were to be in charge or at least to have an equal voice in newspapers there wouldn't be that much of an emphasis on conflict situations. [Rubin] Do you believe that? [Berman] I don't know. I mean I I don't I do not, I could not go come out and say yes if women were in charge things would be better. You know that I think that's that's very simplistic. But I certainly feel that women have been shut out, really shut out. And and I'd like to see them able to get back -- [Rubin] Because the conflict situation really is more endemic as a problem of of the news

business, has always been the the man bites dog approach or the best stories one of which there is a fire or a riot or some country attacking one, another country. I think that women perhaps have a problem in that the news has been about a male dominated world and perhaps the criticism that we've always made of the press about not covering certain kinds of stories really refers to the fact that a male dominated press perhaps hasn't been interested in certain kinds of stories and women now have the fatal choice to make the fatal error that they too may follow in the line of not being interested in certain kinds of stories. "I am a woman reporter. I am at the top of my professional form. Therefore I will not dabble in stories about children or stories about old women or stories about old men or nursing homes. I will do the husky kind of story, the what happened at city hall with the mayor's demand to buy

or request to buy a big automobile. Or what happened when somebody bribed somebody else," the typical story which covers politics only from one near aspect of it. Is this is this a temptation? [Berman] I don't know anybody that's ever said that to me. [Rubin] I just said it. [Berman] Well but you're not a woman and you see so I'm not, you're putting your, you're voicing a possibility that a woman might say that, I do know that there is a strong feeling on the part of many women that their stories have been, stories of interest to women have been closed out, stories on daycare, real E.R.A stories that women's news pages-- have been closed to that kind of specifically women's issue. [Rubin] An awful lot of rumor mongering about ERA in the newspapers over the years and it may actually kill ERA in the end, the Equal Rights Amendment, because so many women now are frightened by it for various reasons and because certain women propagandists have brought this to their

attention as as a possibility of losing rights as well as the women who have said that they will gain rights, the reporters haven't covered it well to be sure. [Berman] I think that's true and I know women like Jill Ruckelshaus who have been very close to the issue have said that they felt that most of the coverage of the ERA has been quite one sided and that women have really not had an opportunity to fully examine the issues for themselves. [Rubin] Well you're doing a good job. I think the most important thing that a journalist who is also a professor can do is to dig into the story that will bring the history of women in journalism to us all and I want to thank you for a very candid and very pertinent opinions. My guest has been Joan Berman and this is Bernard Rubin saying good night. [music] Eastern Public Radio Network in cooperation with the Institute for Democratic Communication at Boston University has presented the First Amendment and a Free People, a weekly examination of civil liberties in the media and the like in the 1970s.

The program is produced in the studios of WGBH Boston. [music] This is the eastern Public Radio Network.