THE STATUS OF WOMEN IN THE U.S MEDIA 2015

WOMEN’S MEDIA CENTER
News aggregator and originator Huffington Post again was No. 1
in female bylines
For a second year, news aggregator and originator The Huffington Post, which produces
staff-written news and unpaid submissions, again surpassed CNN.com, The Daily
Beast and FoxNews.com in its tally of female bylines.
The WMC study, which covered only those four online news providers, did not parse
which online contributors were paid and which were not.
Our research concluded that for overall bylines:
53 percent of contributors to the online-only The Huffington Post were female, up
from 48 percent last year. 46.5 percent were men.
43.1 percent of those at CNN’s online news site were female, up from 41 percent in
2013. 56.9 percent were men.
39.7 percent at Fox’s online news portal were female, up from 38 percent last year.
60.3 percent were men.
31.2 percent at the online-only The Daily Beast were female, up from 30 percent in
2013. 68.6 percent were men.
Reuters still led wire competitor Associated Press in female bylines
Reuters and the Associated Press (AP) provide news for news outlets around the globe
and increasingly have done so as newsroom staffs shrink and concentrate more on
local coverage.
Of the two main, traditional wire services, Reuters outpaced the AP in its total of female
bylines during the last quarter of 2013 and repeated that in 2014, when 41.3 percent of
its bylines belonged to women. That’s a slight decline from last year’s 43 percent.
At the AP, in 2014, 35.6 percent of bylines belonged to women, an increase from 2013’s
32 percent.
Most women wrote about education, health and lifestyle; far fewer
females covered economics, politics, sports, tech and other key
assignments
Education, religion, health and lifestyle were the topics women covered more than any
other during the last quarter of 2014.
Women produced 54.6 percent of education coverage, 49.6 percent of religion news,
49.6 percent of lifestyle stories and commentary and 49.3 percent of health coverage and
commentary, figures that were largely unchanged from 2013.
In descending order, women also produced:
42.2 percent of culture news, similar to last year. 57.5 percent were produced by men.
41.3 percent of entertainment news, up from 39 percent. 57.9 percent were produced
by men.
37.7 percent of business/economic news, up from 36 percent. 61.9 percent were
produced by men.
37.7 percent of technology news, up from 35 percent. 62.2 percent were produced
by men.
The Status of Women in the U.S. Media 2015 TOC womensmediacenter.com 11