Women Take on the News Media for their Treatment of the Women's Movement: Panel from the November '75 Conference on Women in Public Life, Part 2

one round a conclusion i came away sarah's really feeling sort of cheated because i didn't feel like that with the time demanded more on me that i had been able to do as many of the sets of these stories as i had wanted but i knew i had done something and i knew i had done probably many more than most other people are for newspapers have been able to do i also felt though that the emphasis on confrontation was largely because of ignorance about the real issues there are involving barriers to women here two women in all parts of the country i hope that when all of us that that between now and the five years in now that there's another un meeting to assess the progress that all of us will be more harm they won't be as much emphasis on confrontation and i'd go around because we will be able to get around the personality types and you write about the issues again that you brought up that anecdote the bears that was a those others buy

more of reorganizing and evan would an odd that the nation leaving us does next because of his former adversary in fear for an acute is to welcome home rewarding star journalist the first order a hat is it's working or are not as pessimistic as some people about either the press one women's movement because i've seen such enormous changes in twenty five years i've been covering women for the western star it was dylan's movement when i went to work for the star nineteen eighty one eleanor roosevelt at a time when ladies in

quotes don't want tax and white was unlike children were supposed to be seen but not heard those first lady of allegro called rules road and coal mines happened to the tens of startled the eyes in the fire on battlefields of world war two in july she'll invited to the white house she was about a vicious as israel's and hundred thousand drew cartoons which he hung in there and she changed things i know what you did for our own profession sam weekly press conferences at the white house and there are some years where the editor said that daily and stacked she would let in only when the reporters many women reporters on the scene when i get to washington including one unknown paper told me that's how they first got no one in the door but things and let the rest of the time i got there in nineteen fifty saturday just

a dollar less than for women of a woman's nature separate food and passion were preoccupied over whether women get that white house dinners receptions harper lee loughner long i mean hmong up to hear white gloves when they shook hands with president and first lady are as ponderous arguments rich preston and the question of calling cards preoccupied attention of the congressional wives great just wash and social bible devotes several pages to the proper procedure just switch lives you call on which day embassy was one day so what's another said it was a very elaborate role playing game first lady she was a lovely lady in israel and we know quite feisty public perception of her was so sam was totally of someone who were constantly cleaning up or husbands or the language

which we have so it was london nelson i am and it's not just washington state continuing to necessary rich club ringlets to the white house and our also a lovely lady who never expressed a little new in all or eight years in office and thank you it was in some ways a new day arrives she started a figure whichever one when the wire about white house renovation she launched center was that was a great shame that she didn't take an childcare centers abortion reform or something more substantive general let me ride and then came

later johnson and ms carpenter ants along blamed personally deficient tree on the white house at the same time the white house in country it's been certainly term i'm sure she reviewed by the world as she too is the subject of countless a really vicious cartoons you spend it as a kind of the old helen houchins and type one woman planning policies across the land we now is a morning speaker said he was much more substantive and that she was really early contours of a new wave of conservation in this country sam there'd been so much said this morning about what lyndon johnson did in terms of advancing them in the government but i'm going to mention in passing a certain was true in nineteen sixty eight hubert humphrey ran for president one thing is like mural

seventy ended years after which he would like to do as first lady and reporters have rituals and role playing to a kind of a traditional question you always asked and it was always a traditional inevitable answer the lady would batter eyelashes colin say she didn't matter of debt and she was clever she would turn the question back and tell you but how really wonderful import her husband would be as president for broke the mold i don't want to be first lady she said it would be like giving a magic one with which to do something for all of things i believe in your current email was retarded children big but she extended that all children the campaign was over brain to be able to him and a congressional wives was holding wide open press conferences around the country talking and every subject including the very very conservative yet no set sam says aha

moment came in nineteen seventy two the woman was getting into the act and many of us here were present for the watching the nationalist local car it's got serious treatment on page one a white paper and of the new york times and i see it as a kind of a watershed it at least in the papers and i'm familiar with it a lot of editors again for the first time playing rather serious attention to women's issues and now as we as we welcome you know at thirty four is doing in the white house intern ms ba pa the wife of a presidential candidate this time lines were placed the fact she's going to have to answer questions on every subject was ordering the male candidates are facing heat the democratic national committee said democratic form and the nationalist local

caucuses are really going on on the male democratic candidates the do and when to do the same thing i think we'll get a very good idea for mo is what they will move reminder that are ethical respected one of twenty five years i find james sanna a ha oh i've been his co editor of the texas observer you swallow irritating absolutely necessary journal that leaves or inside a very large lake the peace bell i'm a science

commission i've gotten over this afternoon about the kinds of changes that have been taking place in women's pages of daily newspapers in this country because i consider the very important sense to have a documentary special on network television with barbara walters one time newsmagazine come out once a month i think the daily drip drip drip sort of like chinese water torture i had the women's section is joe where many of us get much of our self image a few years ago i had the honor of addressing the awards banquet pain misery words for those of you are familiar with an emissary words of the pulitzer prizes i was impressed that year as i have been every year since when i read those stories that caliber of journalism being turned down says investigative reporting about

housing situation is education investors of others' opinion women in the acronym is reporting that would make when woodward and various tools and the answer lee how average rate is on the women's section of the phone said not long ago that she and other women worked in the women's sections always felt that when we first started it was just a little baby and nobody would be any change on the city side run by men talk about you know i can't really beginning to stand on it sounded whenever it had to do with a wren a section zone to be a new section dallas morning news mexico city and she was checking out one of the women charge and said what's going on with your newspaper don't they realize that

this is a big story why did they send woman but i would also suggest to you that the kinds of stories i've mentioned the kinds of stories that many missouri words every year are themselves as unique an exceptional as that one documentary with barbara workers as the anchor person how i think that most of the drip drip drip is still comprise to some very familiar kinds of things that if anyone would like knowing it he waited and then sixteen we get to make the best advice this list isn't a season you may dress as assuming now the future note in southern belle of the past but you left that nineteen seventy four not nineteen seventy three we had good

news this fall ms newton this is recently ah and there's a beauty gives an advantage on covering our man in revenues are high and doing the news in a particular area towards women's section of the prison and mustard on its inception you see me i have one small meeting like it works with military counterparts like peas and visions and uniforms of every arm services the eleventh annual military ball big news was

classified top secret and those of us in washington had been churning for months the deputy secretary of defense bill clinton's national republican committee women of all holy same place for the climax to the social injury and the two sons wedding announcement the men were unaware of the evening's news concerning the nuptials their feminine partners dual strategy is open eyes focused on the midnight and richard began covered with sequins was this really bass know three but i do know what you want you know mr lee anderson confided social soldiers i understand it's definitely going to be next week in washington i can't approach the guests were still waiting for the promised last appearance while a guard was lining up outside this week a woman long lazy town where a double strand of pearls around her neck and holding of cristal in one hand is being added

in an executive to succeed him <unk> that i presume yours or is the next week i'm going to be very important to you and mr clements of the sport by hearing his name only get worse since it's only we have no common in the meantime she's a military secret i sit still about eighty percent on in women's sections in this country despite the women's section of the society the style plans i say it's just been as i say ms ba pa now you know why all the men are white formica

add in the constellation of public television stations around the country the public television station in dallas dr it is considered one of the best and the reason is even as lively an unorthodox and courageous program all news room and one of its star reporters is our next panelist season you have to use the following items like i get my chair may fall out that they're destroying for this panel i'm best to take on the entire broadcasting industry by judith which are also deeply resent so i have strung together some generalities which underneath black che ora mullins phrases for a moment and also maybe a little bit nasty he doesn't reporter not them is trying to negotiate with our broadcast or journalist to clean up their act

i think in the last few years the media print and broadcast her significantly improve its coverage of the feminist movement and to a lesser degree its portrayal of women but at the same time in this last night's then i'm going to say about broadcasting i think we have to be realistic and recognize that the media especially television with its enormous power today remains essentially a menace to women i think it's important whether to say this from an inside view and not just leave the burden members of the public whose opinion journalists often dismissed as too ill informed understands the subtleties and the technical mysteries of our trade any prize must be viewed in the context of the media's general performance about women's sex stereotyping and the movement that mormons i think his professional disgrace on the whole with some exceptions the media trivializes sensationalizes

ridicules distort and still manages to ignore the women's voices are still the trade as home hating man hating combat troops stopping preparers and the human existence according to the media or peer is only in sporadic outburst of madness on the east and west coasts that drew an actor's face a blindness to the pervasiveness and the essential grassroots nature of the movement and the creation of media stars by media whether without that poor individuals cooperation and just plain professional incompetence a combination i believe the ignorance and buyers mostly ignorance are still the hallmark of media coverage of the movement central stereotyping of men and women continues on the unsought discrimination and hiring promotion in assignments continue television is promoting the old stereotypes not only in this country but throughout the world united nations studies us television there are more women

on camera but mostly at the crack of dawn and at noon and they're not getting any more and too many of them were behaving in reporting no differently than their male predecessors thanks for a moment of a number of middle aged women reporting the news compared to a middle aged man and there are no real havens without sexism in establishment communications industry we look to the new wave of journalist to the liberal or the like minded reporters a conference of these rebels may eventually every year at a gathering called leaving convention and at each year at every conference discrimination against women in programming and format continues despite protests every year by women and women's orders public tv where i work as much to be proud of that on women's issues will i'm so that it showed a woman but informed sources if your pardon phrase reported the corporation for public broadcasting has has commissioned a

study which has not been released a lot has been completed which gets barely than any documentation that denounced discrimination and sexual stereotyping are still thriving in public television overall where the mosul dam engine results of the media's performance is ignoring what i'm going call home can then as well i believe as a reporter that the heart and strength of the movement lives in wichita falls texas that is where political caucus positions are blacked out about the local media in iraq where the media has neglected to tell the public about a rape crisis center in houston where a wire story on credit discrimination made in a paper coming out of washington dc but a local study on local credit discrimination was ignored there's a point to being his legacy is much needed to say i think you'll see why this recent is to look very seriously at where the media is today we

women on the whole are simply too ready to burst in the happy place of the news media simply because we haven't been kicked in the teeth lightly it's been in the past it would you rather be thinking that's as it has and discusses the role of women in society and so i think we'd be getting much their coverage if we had more women were helping bring us the news it's very clear is you look at almost any analyst at statistics and i'm reading now from a very relevant that look at how media reporter women's right after john allen out of water how many women write stories that you're likely to read in the course of a day and i think

that's been partly responsible for the insensitivity and lack of perception and many of the women's movement issues that have been reported it and was interviewed where i go because somebody as those were notorious this new question that he asked me the question there ryan said and i think it's politically or whatever it was he recently ten survey of newspaper reporting we had their twenty six articles by women five hundred by noon part report only at heart of those items than four hundred and sixty we have other statistics from a television station managers when we find a hundred and sixty four when the managing and seven interview amanda grew at a two percent of men are doing the programming and ninety six percent of the commercial station i'd like to know who's writing those television programs and ceo turn into city

might only watched television not because i'm worried about the sex and violence i'm worried about the stereotype roles of tennessee about what little girls doing what little boys do a grownup people do so i have a great many questions and although i wonder why no newspaper as a developer the levy to investigate sex discrimination because i think an investigative journalist could easily pick up enough information to change much more quickly than the cumbersome legal procedures you're going through that they get him and are they really i'm also interested to know him what we can do and i think one of the things that we can do is we can begin writing station managers to newspaper editors ellen were offended squeaky wheel gets get oil and it always seems to surprise them to discover that an actor reading of having opinions and writing so if you hear a

sexist joke that some of this debt is that we need to have the right to station that we don't have to listen to that and when you watch a television commercial it tells you and your daughter and your son it's a woman's of all because the man has a very tolerant vivien what his neck it's b you just heard a panel discussion on the media's treatment of the women's movement on the panel journalist bill moyers fifth moyers radical homemaker susan goldin author of clout and director of the washington institute for women in politics that is sensitive the associated press is a bill shelton columnist for the washington star molly ivan is co editor of the texas observer susan caudle of kbr a public television in dallas texas and joe ruckelshaus residing officer of the us commission on the

international women's year the program you just heard was taken from a november nineteen seventy five conference on women in public life the conference was held in austin texas under the auspices of the university of texas at austin lbj school of public affairs and the lbj presidential library you've been listening to university forum producer stewart wilbur this program is produced by k u t fm and distributed by communication center university of taxes at austin oh no this is the longhorn radio network