Our Advocacy Work
June 6th, 2014It’s often seen as a dirty word, and I usually avoid using it. So when Lisa Kimmel, the general manager of Edelman PR agency recently invited me to debate the merits of imposing a gender “quota” on journalists as a means of increasing the number of women quoted in the news, I balked. Even though […]
read more...Why Journalists Should Be Forced to Quote More WomenOur Advocacy Work
October 21st, 2012The infographic below is depressingly self-explanatory — on one level. It makes clear how entrenched the gender skew is when it comes to who gets quoted in North American media. And — as MediaWatch discovered 20 years ago when we conducted a comprehensive analysis of newsmakers (those quoted or reported on) in Canadian dailies — […]
read more...Women’s voices — on women’s issues — missing in actionImprove your Writing
April 23rd, 2012“No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy, would have supposed her born to be a heroine.” “Tap-dancing child abuser. That’s what The Sunday New York Times from March 8, 1993, had called Vivi.” “But, you may say, we asked you to speak about women and fiction.” Are you intrigued by one […]
read more...Opening lines – make ’em workOur Advocacy Work
December 11th, 2011[NY Times media columnist David] Carr says that years ago he was on a panel with Jack Shafer, who is now a writer for Slate, when someone pointed out to them that the panel was mostly white men. Shafer joked, “But the entitled white male perspective is such an interesting perspective,” and everybody laughed. When Carr […]
read more...The “entitled white male perspective”Our Advocacy Work
October 28th, 2011It’s 1997, and I’m on the phone in the home office space I share with my husband. He’s leaping up and down and gesticulating wildly in an effort to change the words coming out of my mouth. Why? Because I’m telling a CBC radio reporter that “I’m not really the best person” to pontificate on […]
read more...IBM CEO and the female confidence issue