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Feminist Discusses Glass Ceiling in Media

Aired August 27, 2002 - 13:40   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Remember the old TV ad that claimed, "You've come a long way, baby"? Not according to a new study of women of women in mass media companies. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania surveyed the leadership of the largest communication companies. Here is a couple of examples of what they found. Women comprise 14 percent of executives at entertainment conglomerates. In new media, women account for only 18 percent of executives at top e- companies.
For more on the study, we are joined by Kathleen Hall Jamieson, in Philadelphia. She is with the Annenberg School of Communication at Penn.

Good to see you, Kathleen.

KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA: Thank you.

PHILLIPS: But I don't know if the subject is very good. Listen, to me, to a lot of us here, this isn't new news. You can you look around our newsroom, you can see who are making very powerful decisions around here. It is not a lot of women.

JAMIESON: Let's start with the good news first. On air, women have made a lot of progress. When I was growing up, you saw very few women, lots of men on air. Now at local news and on network news, you are more likely to see women on air. in fact, we are a little over 50 percent at local level; we're close to that at the national level. So on air, you are seeing women.

The question is what are you seeing behind the scenes making the decisions?. In local news, lots of executives producers. Women are approaching 50 percent in news. Network level, it's closer to 25. And then in board room, well, that still looks like a fraternity.

PHILLIPS: Why is that?

JAMIESON: The mentoring process is not one that is encouraging those talented women in middle management to move up.

The numbers of women coming out of communications schools, by the way, are between 70 and 80 percent of graduating classes. So the numbers are there to begin to force change at the local level eventually, but movement has been very slow.

In addition to mentoring at the board level, there is kind of an old boy network there. The people who get named to boards tend to be people who know the people on boards, and those tends to be guys who golf together. So expanding the pool, not because there aren't people out there, but because the pool right now consists of a lot of people and need to look a little bit different.

It's one of the high priorities here. There is talent out there; it doesn't appear to be tapped once you get into the executive suite.

PHILLIPS: How do those women get into the executive suite? Are you saying we have to play more golf, we have to start smoking cigars, we need to crash the all-men grill? Tell me the deal.

JAMIESON: First, I think we need to focus on the fact that the women that people said couldn't handle news on air seem to be doing a very good job at it. So let's dispel the stereotypes when you give women authority, they don't take advantage of it and don't do a very good job. Let's also dispel the notion that they are not there. Women are there in unprecedented numbers across all the mid-management levels, and including in local news a whole lot of people moving up through executive directors and news positions.

So what's the real question? The question is when you think CEO, do you think Judith McHale at Discovery? She is doing a great job. Or Pat Mitchell at PBS, who is also doing a terrific job. Or do you think of those 4 out of 5 CEOs who are male? The problem right now is those people who are thinking CEO are too often thinking it's got have a starched white shirt and a blue tie and a blue suit, at least on some days when it's not on the golf course. And women could have those suits too; they probably would just wear them as pant suits.

PHILLIPS: I can tell you a lot of women in this newsroom can smoke the pants off some the men that play golf in this newsroom too. I want to make that clear.

JAMIESON: Thank you.

PHILLIPS: There you go.

I noticed when I was reading the numbers women have done very well in publishing.

JAMIESON: Women have done better in publishing. It's at about 28 percent of the publishers. And that's in part because the audience for magazines tilts substantially toward women. And the leadership positions women have in network news and cable news, as well as in the cable channels, tend to be in those areas in which the audience is overwhelmingly women -- not just primarily, but overwhelmingly female. The real question, then, becomes, how do we account for the fact it is only 28 percent when magazines tilt so heavily toward women. And how to do we account for the fact it is under 15 percent of women publishing newspapers.

There is an interesting statistic out there somewhere which says that women ultimately control a lot of the nation's wealth in part because we live longer. If we live longer would you would think we would make it into the executive suite, and once we get there, we would stay there longer.

PHILLIPS: So you are saying we just have to get more ballsy.

JAMIESON: I wouldn't phrase it that way, but then that's because I'm an academic. I'd say we need to have stronger mentoring. We need to have stronger mentoring. We need to have broader searches. We need to have a clearer set of expectations that the training in place will be training in the so-called hard areas of the administrative suite. And by that I don't mean sexual reference. What I mean is that the economic positions -- those that control money -- tend to be held by men, where the softer positions -- those are positions in human relations, public relations, are more likely to be held by women. That appears to be a gender stereotype which says women can't handle money, but women are better at people. People and money ultimately work together. Women are very well qualified economically, as women CEOs have established. Perhaps there is some gender stereotyping underlying some of those selections, and we need to get past that.

PHILLIPS: I don't know, Kathleen, most women I know, the wives handle all the checkbooks.

Kathleen Jamieson, thank you very much. Great insight -- a little discouraging, a little encouraging. We are going to have you come do a seminar and get us all motivated.

JAMIESON: Thank you.

PHILLIPS: Thanks, Kathleen. Bye-bye.

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