Study Asks If Reporter's Gender or Audience Predict Paper's Cancer ...

Research in Brief- 91Study Asks If Reporter's Gender or AudiencePredict Paper's Cancer CoverageBy Maria E. Len-Rios, Sun-A Park, Glen T. Cameron, Douglas L. Duke and Matt KreuterReresearch shows women andracial and ethnic minorities are generallyless represented as subjects andsources in news stories.* Likewise, theyhave been underrepresented in medicalresearch.^ The 1968 Kemer CommissionReport, which implicated the newsmedia for not adequately representingthe lives of African Americans,^spurred the news media to reflectU.S. societal groups more accurately.Similarly, government decisions, suchas the 1995 Centers for Disease Controland Prevention policy requiringall externally funded researchers toexplain their inclusion of women andminorities, are meant to increase thegeneralizability of medical researchfindings and increase knowledge ofdiseases that affect women and racialand ethnic minorities."* Data show thatblacks carry a heavier disease burdenthan does the general U.S. population^and that the same disease can affectmen and women differently.*^Black newspapers have historicallyserved as advocates for theirreaders, and, in the same way, someresearch shows female reporters aremore likely to advocate for women(e.g., address women's rights and usefemale sources). The purpose of thisresearch is twofold:• to determine if black newspapersand women appear to serve asadvocates• to look at gender representationin both black and general audiencenewspapers. Researchers have studiedreporter gender and the reporting ofgender-speciHc cancers in network TVnews and showed that men did mostcancer story reporting.^More specifically, this studyinvestigates how black newspapersand general audience' newspapersserve their readers by reporting ongender-specific cancers relative tocancer incidence and mortality rates.It also evaluates whether the gender ofLen-Rios is an assistant professor and Park is a doctoral student in strategic communication.Cameron is the Maxine Wilson Gregory Chair in Journalism Researchand a professor of strategic communication. All are in the School of Journalism at theUniversity of Missouri. Luke is the director of biostatistics and an associate professor,and Kreuter is a professor in the department of community health. Division ofBiostatistics at Saint Louis University' School of Public Health. This research was supportedby a grant from the National Cancer Institute, Centers of Excellence in CancerCommunication initiative.

92 - Newspaper Research Journal • Vol. 29, No. 2 • Spring 2008the reporter is associated with cancerreporting, reporting of gender-specificcancers and the use of female storysources. Considering reporter genderis important because it is associatedwith story tone, content and use of agreater diversity of sources.'Cancer is second only to heart diseaseas a cause of U.S. death.'" Prostatecancer and breast cancer are the mostcommon gender-specific cancers." Estimatesfrom 2007 showed 29 percentof all men and 37 percent of black menwere diagnosed with prostate cancer.Additionally, prostate cancer accountedfor 9 percent of cancer deaths in allmen and 13 percent of cancer deathsin black men. In 2007,26 percent of allU.S. women and 27 percent of blackwomen were diagnosed with breastcancer. Breast cancer caused 15 percentof cancer deaths in all women and 19percent in black women.'^ Black menhave a higher incidence of prostatecancer, and men overall are diagnosedmore often with a gender-specificcancer than are women. Still, genderspecificcancers kill more women.Figures from 2006 specify therewere 237 black newspapers,"similarto 1986 figures.'" Surveys demonstratethat African-American publishers andeditors believe that their unique contentdistinguishes them from generalaudience newspapers.'^ This view isshared by their readers."" One surveyrevealed that 68 percent of AfricanAmericans report reading a blacknewspaper.'^ A North Carolina surveyshowed that black newspaper readerswere also more likely to read a localnewspaper.'^Black newspapers may be a valuablehealth news source for black readers.In a survey of black newspaperreaders, 80 percent said they read storiesthat addressed black health risks;67 percent said stories had influencedthem to alter a health habit."Few studies specifically addresscancer coverage in the black press.Studies of Canadian ethnic cancer newssuggested that content is culturallytailored^" and that ethnic groups selectivelygather cancer information.^' OneU.S. study that compared mainstreamnewspapers with ethnic newspapersfound that ethnic newspapers focusedmore on prevention and that bothnewspaper types emphasized cancertreatments and breast cancer.^^Reporter gender has been linked togender representation in news stories,source selection and the reporting qualityof gendered topics. Prior researchshows that women appear less often innews than do men. Len-Rios, Rodgers,Thorson and Yoon^ studied two metropolitandailies and found that womenwere represented in 18-21 percentof news stories and 27-30 percent ofnews photos. Other studies have foundsimilar underrepresentation.^"Research also shows that reportergender matters in story sourcingbecause female reporters were morelikely to use female sources than weremales.^^ As Zoch and Turk^* have argued,when women do not appear instories as sources, it sends "a signalto the reader that they are relativelyunimportant."Studies also have examinedwhether reporter gender affects thetreatment of news topics. Merritt andGross^^ studied lifestyle sections andfound that female reporters wrote moreabout the women's movement and men

Research in Brief- 93wrote more about leisure topics.Some studies have found that femalereporters do not represent womenmore frequently or better than malereporters. Liebler and Smith^** studiedgender in TV news and concludedthat both female and male reportersreported stories in the same manner.Lavie and Lehman-Wilzig^' discovereda lack of gender differences in newsvalues among Israeli news editors.Researchers have offered reasonsfor these discrepancies, includingnewsroom pressures, economic factorsand reporter socialization.^" Craftand Wanta^^ suggest that the gender oftop management matters. Everbach's^^research of a newspaper with an allfemale management team concludedthat female news managers influencednews sections where there were morestaff stories rather than news frontsections.Few studies address reportergender and gender-specific cancers.Corbett and Mori^^ looked at nationalTV news stories and found that malereporters (75 percent) reported moregender-specific cancer stories than didfemale reporters (25 percent). Malereporters also delivered both male andfemale cancer stories, whereas femalereporters almost always deliveredfemale cancer stories.Research QuestionsBased on these findings it is notclear how gender-specific cancer storiesmay be reported in general audienceand black newspapers, so the followingresearch questions are presented:what is the proportion of journalists,male v. female, who write aboutcancer in general audience and blacknewspapers?RQ2a:Are female reporters more likely toreport on breast cancer than are malereporters in black newspapers andgeneral audience newspapers?RQ2b:Are male reporters more likelyto report on prostate cancer than arefemale reporters in black newspapersand general audience newspapers?RQ3:Does the coverage of genderspecificcancer in black and generalaudience newspapers reflect the actualU.S. incidence or mortality rates forcancer?RQ4:Is the gender of the reporter associatedwith the gender of the reportr ter's '-primary source?MethodSampleThe data are from a large contentanalysis of black and generalaudience newspapers.^ This study'ssample includes health news storiesfor a 17-month period between April1, 2004, and Aug. 28, 2005.^5 A total ofN=7,318 stories was initially selectedas general health stories from 36 newspapers—24black newspapers and 12community-matched general audiencenewspapers.^* Of these, 1,559 stories

94 - Newspaper Research Journal • Vol. 29, No. 2 • Spring 2008were identified as staff stories—1,056from general audience newspapers and503 from black newspapers. Of those,cancer was the primary topic of 198stories—131 (66.2 percent) from generalaudience new^spapers and 67 (33.8percent) from black newspapers.Coding Analysis and CategoriesCoding included reading thenewspaper articles and classifyingstories as health stories. Next, trainedcoders applied the coding instrument.Krippendorf's alpha is reported as thereliability estimate for each variablecoded.VariablesStory source. Stories were coded as"staff stories," "wire stories," "both" or"other." Only staff stories were used inthis analysis. The reliability was .78.Health topic. Stories were selectedas cancer stories if the word "cancer"or the terms: "carcinogen," "lump,""malignant," "neoplasm," "oncology,""tumor" or other variations of theseterms appeared in the headline or firsttwo paragraphs of the story. The reliabilitywas .81Primary cancer site. Stories inwhich cancer was mentioned werealso coded for themain cancer inthe story. Genderspecificcancerscoded includedbreast cancer andprostate cancer.The reliability was.92.Reporter gender.Gender wasidentified by theTable 1Reporter's Gender, CancerBlack NewspapersGenGender nFemale 60Male 53Total 113X'=1.57,p>.05reporter's first name or photo andwas coded for the first author only.Gender categories were: (1) "female,"(2) "male," and (3) "can't tell." The"can't tell" category was used whengender could not be determined. Thereliability was .94.Source gender. Sources were definedas people quoted in the story. Theprimary source is typically the mostimportant story source, as reportersuse inverted pyramid style, puttingthe most important information at thetop of the story. Gender was identifiedby the source's first name or by theuse of the pronouns "he" or "she."The categories were: (1) "female," (2)"male," and (3) "can't tell." The reliabilitywas .89.ResultsRQl addressed whether gender isassociated with writing about cancerin both black and general audiencenewspapers. Atotal of 156 stories from198 cancer stories were coded for reportergender—males wrote 78 stories(50 percent) and females wrote 78 (50percent). Forty-two stories were identifiedas "can't tell." Of the 198 stories,131 were in general audience papersAud.%53.146.9100Stories In General Audience,n182543IHack%41.958.1100n7878156Totals%5050100

Research in Brief- 95Table 2Reporter Gender and Gender-SpecificAudience, Black NewspapersGenderFemaleMaleCan't tellTotalBreast cancer(n = 43)Gen. Aud. Black101332649417and 67 were in black newspapers. If justpercentages and numbers are lookedat where gender is identified, femaleswrote more (53 percent, n=60) than didmales (47 percent, n=53) in general audiencepapers. When looking at storiesappearing in black newspapers, maleswrote (58 percent, n=25) more storiesthan did females (42 percent, n=18).There were no significant associationsbetween gender and reporting on cancer(X2=1.57, p>.05). [See Table 1]RQ2 asked whether reporter genderwas related to the gender-specificcancer in the stories. Staff wrote fewgender-specific cancer stories in the 35Cancer Sites in GeneralProstate cancer(n = 16)Gen Aud. Black320552411papers. Ofthe 198 cancerstories, 43were aboutbreast cancerand 16 wereabout prostatecancer.The remainingstorieswere spreadamong an arrayof othercancers or cancer in general.Analysis of breast cancer storiesin general audience (n=26) and blacknewspapers (n=17) showed there wereno significant associations betweenreporter gender and reporting onbreast cancer. Of prostate cancer storiesin general audience (n=5) and blacknewspapers (n=ll), the sample sizewas too small to discern any significantassociations. [See Table 2]RQ3 related to the proportionof stories in the sample that addressgender-specific cancers and actualpopulation incidence and mortalityrates. Of the 198 cancer stories, 21.7Table 3Gender-Specific Cancer Stories in General Audience, Black Newspapersand Actual EstimatesCancer TypeGn. Ad.Stories2005incidenceestimatesforGn. Ad.2005estimatedmortalityrates forGn. Ad.BlacksStories2005 2005incidence estimatedestimates mortalityfor rates forBlacks BlacksBreastProstate26(19.8) 325 (3.8) 33151017(25.4) 29.911 (16.4) 41.818.415.6Note: Incidence and mortality estimates from the American Cancer Society, 2005.2005 estimates are used to match the time period of the content analysis data.

96 - Newspaper Research Journal • Vol. 29, No. 2 » Spring 2008Table 4Reporter Gender and Cancer StorySource Gender in General AudienceSource GenderReporterGender (%)Male Female Gan'tTellwas no association (X^=7.55,df=4, n=56, p>.05). In fact,male reporters used femalesources slightly more thandid female reporters (malestaff: 68.2 percent; femalestaff: 43.8 percent).FemaleMaleCan't tellTotalX'=15.555, p< .0166.7 39.631.4 60.42 0100 100percent (n=43) were about breast cancerand 8.1 percent (n=16) were aboutprostate cancer. By newspaper, of the131 general audience newspaper stories,26 (19.8 percent) were on breastcancer and 5 (3.8 percent) were aboutprostate cancer. For the black newspapers,of the 67 cancer stories, 17 (25.4percent) were on breast cancer and 11(16.4 percent) were on prostate cancer.[See Table 3] Thus in both cases, breastcancer received proportionally morecoverage, although prostate cancer wasreported on proportionally about fourtimes as often in blacknewspapers thanin general audience newspapers.To address the last question, therelationship between the reporter'sgender and primary cancer storysource was examined. Of the 198 cancerstories, 167 had at least one source.For the general audience newspapersthere was a significant associationbetween reporter gender and thegender of the story's primary source(X2=15.56, df=4, n=lll, p< .01). [SeeTable 4] Male reporters used femalesources more often than did femalereporters (66.7 percent v. 39.6 percent).For black newspapers, however, there42.942.914.3100DiscussionThe data show that bothmale and female reportersare equally likely to writecancer stories. Also, contraryto previous findings in TV news, it appearsthat male and female reportersare not pigeonholed to write aboutgender-specific cancers according totheir gender.The association between reportergender and source gender was onlysignificant for staff at general audiencenewspapers. Male reporters usedfemales as primary sources more oftenthan did female reporters. These datamay suggest male reporters serve anadvocacy role, or it may be connectedto the finding (although not statisticallysignificant) that male staff wrote morebreast cancer stories and there weremore breast cancer stories overall.As previous research has found,breast cancer received more coveragethan did prostate cancer in both typesof newspapers. This maybe a reflectionof the number of groups (e.g., SusanG. Komen Foundation) and corporatesponsorship programs (e.g., Yoplaitsave Lids, Race for the Cure) that promotebreast cancer awareness.Reporters, when working to meetdeadlines, may not have the luxuryof determining whether they providereaders a balance of news coverage

Research in Brief- 97about health topics in proportion to thedisease's incidence or mortality rates.Whether newspapers should reflectreality has been debated; studies doshow that the news media do influenceperceptions of reality. Our data showthat the proportion of coverage forboth types of newspapers exceeds themortality rates for the populations theyserve except for reporting on prostatecancer in general audience newspapers.^''Mortality rates serve as a proxyfor the severity of a disease. However, ifreporting on gender-specific cancers isto match disease prevalence, incidencerates would need to be matched. It isclear that the proportion of stories ongender-specific cancers is much lowerthan their incidence rates except forthe incidence rates related to AfricanAmerican women with breast cancer.Probably the most striking findingis that black newspapers wrotea greater proportion of their storiesabout gender-specific cancers thandid general audience newspapers. Inparticular, they wrote twice as manystories about prostate cancer. If blacknewspapers play an advocacy role, itwould be expected that they wouldwrite more about prostate cancer becauseblack men have higher incidenceand mortality rates.There are some caveats to the findings,primarily the size of the samplefor cancer stories. This is partly due tonarrowing our analysis to staff-writtenstories. Even so, of the 1,559 staff-writtenhealth stories, just 198, or 13 percent,were primarily about cancer. This issurprising because cancer accountsfor about 25 percent of all deaths inAmericans.^*In examining reporter genderand cancer stories, this study did notaccount for the number of health reportersat the newspapers that weremale and female.Future research might comparethe content of staff-generated stories tonon-staff stories to determine if there isa difference in the quality and localizationof the content. Analysis of newsstories could also determine whetherthere are associations between reportergender, story tone and story elements(e.g., framing). Previous research suggeststhat women write more positivenews stories^' and female news viewersprefer positive news."*"Notes1. MariaE. Len-Ri'os, Esther Thorson, ShellyRodgers and Doyle Yoon, "Analysis of NewsContent and Newsroom and Audience Perceptionsof Ethnicity Coverage and Diversity in theNewsroom: Implications for Social ComparisonProcesses." (paper presented at the InternationalCommunication Association annual conference,Seoul, Korea, 2002).2. Rosaly Correa-de-Araujo, "Serious Gaps:How the Lack of Sex/Gender-Based ResearchImpairs Health," Journal of Women's Health 15,no. 10 (2006): 1116-1122; Robert M. Mayberry,Fatima Mili and Elizabeth Ofili, "Racial andEthnic Differences in Access to Medical Care," inRace, Ethnicity and Health: A Public Health Reader,ed. Thomas A. LaVeist (San Francisco, CA: JohnWiley & Sons, 2002), 163-197.3. Dianne L. Cherry, "Attention to BlackPeople's P.O.W.E.R. in the Major MetropolitanPress," Journal of Black Studies 21, no. 4 (1991):387-397; Mercedes L. de Uriarte, "A ProblematicPress: Latinos and the News," in JournalismAcross Gultures, eds. Fritz Cropp, Cynthia M.Frisby and Dean Mills (Ames, IA: Iowa StatePress, 2003), 39-63.4. "Policy on the Inclusion of Womenand Racial and Ethnic Minorities in ExternallyAwarded Research." Federal Register 60:179 (15September 1995) 47947-47951.5. Mayberry, Mili and Ofili, "Racial and

98 - Newspaper Research Journal • Vol. 29, No. 2 • Spring 2008Ethnic Differences."Communities," (paper presented atlntemational6. Correa-de-Araujo, "Serious Gaps." Communication Association annual conference,7. Julia B. Corbett and Motomi Mori, Dresden, Germany, June 2006); Judith Sylvester,"Gender-Specific Cancers, Gender-Specific "Media Research Bureau Black NewspaperReporters?" Science Communication 20, no. 4 ReadershipReport," inMilestonesin BkckNewspaperResearch, ed. Fred Black (Washington, DC:(1999): 395-408.8. A general audience newspaper, or mainstreamnewspaper, is one that is meant to serve 1993), 11-13,56-81; Timothy Vercellotti and PaulNational Newspaper Publishers Association,all reader demographics in a particular city, town, R. Brewer, "To Plead Our Own Cause' Publicor geographic area.Opinion Toward Black and Mainstream News9. Maria E. Grabe and Rasha Kamhawi, Media Among African Americans," Journal of"Hard Wired for Negative News? Gender Differencesin Processing Broadcast News," Com-17. Judith Sylvester, "Media Research Bu-Black Studies 37, no. 2 (2006): 231-250.munication Research 33, no.5 (2006): 346-369; Geri reau Black Newspaper."A. Zeldes, Frederick Fico and Arvind Diddi, 18. Vercellotti and Brewer, "'To Plead Our"Race and Gender: An Analysis of the Sources Own Cause' Public Opinion."and Reporters in Local Television Coverage of 19. Judith Sylvester, "Media Research BureauBlack Newspaper."the 2002 Michigan Gubernatorial Campaign,"Mass Communication & Society 10, no. 3 (2007): 20. Daniela B. Friedman and Laurie Hoffman-Goetz,"Assessment of Cultural Sensitivity345-363.10. Melonie P. Heron and Betty L. Smith, of Cancer Information in Ethnic Print Media,""Deaths: Leading Causes for 2003," National Vital journal of Health Communication 11, no. 4 (2006):Statistics Reports 55, no. 10 (2007): 1-16. 425-447.11. Men also get breast cancer. The AmericanCancer Society estimated 450 men died of Dianne M. Shumay, Yvonne Tatsumura and21. Hisako Kakai, Gertraud Maskarinec,breast cancer in 2007. Statistically, of cancer Katsuya Tasaki, "Ethnic differences in choicesdeaths in men, breast cancer represents less than of health information by cancer patients usingcomplementary and alternative medicine:half a percent. American Cancer Society, "WhatAre the Key Statistics About Breast Cancer in An exploratory study with correspondenceMen?" 27 September 2007,

Research in Brief- 99tation in Elite Newspapers," journalism Quarterly62, no. 3 (1985): 636-640; Shelly Rodgers andEsther Thorson, "'Fixing' Stereotypes in NewsPhotos: A Synergistic Approach with the LosAngeles Times," Visual Communication Quarterly55, no. 7 (2000): 8-11.25. Armstrong, "The Influence of ReporterGender;" Shelly Rodgers and Esther Thorson,"A Socialization Perspective on Male and FemaleReporting," journal of Communication 53,no. 4 (2003): 658-675; Lynn M. Zoch and JudyVanSlyke Turk, "Women Making News: Genderas a Variable in Source Selection and Use,"journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 75,no. 4 (1998): 762-775; Zeldes, Fico and Diddi,"Race and Gender."26. Zoch and Turk, "Women makingnews," 771.27. Sharyne Merritt and Harriet EngelGross, "Women's Page/Lifestyle Editors: DoesSex Make a Difference?" journalism Quarterly 55,no. 3 (1978): 508-514.28. Carol M. Liebler and Susan J. Smith,"Tracking Gender Differences: A ComparativeAnalysis of Network Correspondents and TheirSources," journal of Broadcasting & ElectronicMedia 41, no. 1 (1997): 58-68.29. Aliza Lavie and Sam Lehman-Wilzig,"Whose News?: Does Gender Determine theEditorial Product?" European journal of Communication18, no.l (2003): 5-29.30. Lavie and Lehman-Wilzig "Whosenews?."; Liebler and Smith, "Tracking genderdifferences."31. Stephanie Craft and Wayne Wanta,"Women in the Newsroom: Influences of FemaleEditors and Reporters on the News Agenda,"journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 81,no. 1 (2004): 124-138.32. Tracy Everbach, "The 'Masculine' Contentof a Female-Managed Newspaper," MediaReport to Women 33, no.4 (2005): 14-22.33. Corbett and Mori, "Gender-SpecificCancers."34. A detailed description and rationalefor the sampling method is available in ElisiaL. Cohen, Charlene A. Caburnay, Douglas A.Luke, Shelly Rodgers, Glen T. Cameron and MattKreuter, "Cancer Coverage in General Audienceand Black Newspapers" Health Communication(forthcoming).35. The data represent a time period beforea community intervention. This study isa secondary analysis. During data collectionthere were notable stories (i.e., October 2004:Melissa Etheridge's breast cancer; November2004: Elizabeth Edwards' breast cancer; August2005: Peter Jennings died of lung cancer, DanaReeve revealed she had lung cancer and AugustWilson announced he had liver cancer). Thesestories did not disproportionately affect thesample; one story was about Dana Reeve andtwo were about August Wilson.36. One black newspaper was omittedbecause its issues were not reliably received.The following black newspapers were analyzed:Baltimore Afro-American, Buffalo Criterion, CarolinaBlack News (Columbia, S.C.), Carolina Times(Durham, N.C.), Charleston Chronicle, ChicagoCrusader, The Chronicle (Winston-Salem, N.C.),Columbus (Ca.) Times, Dallas Examiner, DaytonaBeach (Fla.) Daytona Times, Frost Illustrated (Ft.Wayne), Herald Dispatch (La.), Houston ForwardTimes, Jackson Advocate, Jacksonville Free Press,Kansas City Call, Metro Courier (Augusta, Ga.),Michigan Chronicle (Detroit), Milwaukee Communityjournal, Nashville Pride, Pensacola Voice,Richmond Voice, Savannah Herald. The generalaudience newspapers examined included: Augusta(Ca.) Chronicle, Baltimore Sun, Chicago Sun-Times, Columbus (GA) Ledger-Enquirer, DetroitNews, Florida Times-Union (Jacksonville, Fla.),Herald Sun (Durham, N.C.), journal Gazette (Ft.Wayne), Milwaukee journal Sentinel, PensacolaNews journal. Post & Courier (Charleston, S.C.),Richmond Times Dispatch.37. American Cancer Society, Cancer Factsand Figures 2005. (Atlanta: American CancerSociety, 2005); American Cancer Society, CancerFacts & Figures for African Americans, 2005-2006,(Atlanta: American Cancer Society, 2005).38. American Cancer Society, Cancer Facts& Figures 2007, 2.39. Tracy Everbach, "The Culture of aWomen-led Newspaper: An EthnographicStudy of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune," journalism& Mass Communication Quarterly 83, no. 3(2006): 477-493.40. Grabe and Kamhawi, "Hard Wired ForNegative News?"