Women should represent women in media
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0:01 - 0:04Like most journalists, I'm an idealist.
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0:04 - 0:09I love unearthing good stories, especially untold stories.
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0:09 - 0:12I just didn't think that, in 2011,
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0:12 - 0:14women would still be in that category.
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0:14 - 0:18I'm the President of the Journalism & Women Symposium,
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0:18 - 0:21JAWS. That's Sharky. (Laughter)
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0:21 - 0:24I joined 10 years ago because I wanted female role models,
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0:24 - 0:27and I was frustrated by the lagging status of women
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0:27 - 0:30in our profession, and what that meant for our image
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0:30 - 0:32in the media.
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0:32 - 0:34We make up half the population of the world,
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0:34 - 0:36but we're just 24 percent of the news subjects
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0:36 - 0:39quoted in news stories,
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0:39 - 0:42and we're just 20 percent of the experts quoted in stories,
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0:42 - 0:44and now, with today's technology,
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0:44 - 0:48it's possible to remove women from the picture completely.
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0:48 - 0:52This is a picture of President Barack Obama
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0:52 - 0:55and his advisors tracking the killing of Osama bin Laden.
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0:55 - 0:57You can see Hillary Clinton on the right.
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0:57 - 0:58Let's see how the photo ran
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0:58 - 1:02in an Orthodox Jewish newspaper based in Brooklyn.
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1:02 - 1:06Hillary's completely gone. (Laughter)
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1:06 - 1:08The paper apologized but said
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1:08 - 1:10it never runs photos of women.
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1:10 - 1:14They might be sexually provocative. (Laughter)
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1:14 - 1:17This is an extreme case, yes, but the fact is,
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1:17 - 1:19women are only 19 percent of the sources
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1:19 - 1:22in stories on politics,
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1:22 - 1:25and only 20 percent in stories on the economy.
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1:25 - 1:28The news continues to give us a picture where men
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1:28 - 1:31outnumber women in nearly all occupational categories
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1:31 - 1:36except two: students and homemakers. (Laughter)
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1:36 - 1:40So we all get a very distorted picture of reality.
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1:40 - 1:42The problem is, of course,
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1:42 - 1:43there aren't enough women in newsrooms.
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1:43 - 1:46They reported just 37 percent of stories
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1:46 - 1:48in print, TV and radio.
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1:48 - 1:51Even in stories on gender-based violence,
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1:51 - 1:53men get an overwhelming majority of print space
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1:53 - 1:55and airtime.
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1:55 - 1:57Case in point,
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1:57 - 1:59this March, the New York Times ran a story
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1:59 - 2:01by James McKinley about a gang rape of a young girl,
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2:01 - 2:0411 years old, in a small Texas town.
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2:04 - 2:06McKinley writes that the community's wondering,
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2:06 - 2:11"How could their boys have been drawn into this?"
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2:11 - 2:13"Drawn into this," like they were
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2:13 - 2:16seduced into committing an act of violence.
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2:16 - 2:17And the first person he quotes says,
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2:17 - 2:20"These boys will have to live with this the rest of their lives."
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2:20 - 2:23(Crowd reacts)
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2:23 - 2:26You don't hear much about the 11-year-old victim,
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2:26 - 2:30except that she wore clothes that were a little old for her
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2:30 - 2:32and she wore makeup.
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2:32 - 2:35The Times was deluged with criticism.
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2:35 - 2:38Initially, it defended itself, and said, "These aren't our views.
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2:38 - 2:40This is what we found in our reporting."
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2:40 - 2:44Now, here's a secret you probably know already:
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2:44 - 2:45Your stories are constructed.
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2:45 - 2:48As reporters, we research, we interview.
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2:48 - 2:51We try to give a good picture of reality.
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2:51 - 2:54We also have our own unconscious biases,
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2:54 - 2:55but the Times makes it sound like
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2:55 - 2:59anyone would have reported this story the same way.
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2:59 - 3:01I disagree with that.
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3:01 - 3:04So three weeks later, the Times revisits the story.
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3:04 - 3:08This time, it adds another byline to it with McKinley's:
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3:08 - 3:09Erica Goode.
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3:09 - 3:13What emerges is a truly sad, horrific tale of a young girl
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3:13 - 3:16and her family trapped in poverty.
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3:16 - 3:19She was raped numerous times by many men.
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3:19 - 3:21She had been a bright, easygoing girl.
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3:21 - 3:24She was maturing quickly, physically,
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3:24 - 3:27but her bed was still covered with stuffed animals.
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3:27 - 3:28It's a very different picture.
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3:28 - 3:30Perhaps the addition of Ms. Goode
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3:30 - 3:33is what made this story more complete.
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3:33 - 3:35The Global Media Monitoring Project has found that
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3:35 - 3:37stories by female reporters are more likely
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3:37 - 3:40to challenge stereotypes than those by male reporters.
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3:40 - 3:43At KUNM here in Albuquerque, Elaine Baumgartel
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3:43 - 3:45did some graduate research on the coverage
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3:45 - 3:46of violence against women.
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3:46 - 3:49What she found was many of these stories
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3:49 - 3:52tend to blame victims and devalue their lives.
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3:52 - 3:55They tend to sensationalize, and they lack context.
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3:55 - 3:58So for her graduate work, she did a three-part series
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3:58 - 4:00on the murder of 11 women
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4:00 - 4:02found buried on Albuquerque's West Mesa.
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4:02 - 4:04She tried to challenge those patterns and stereotypes
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4:04 - 4:07in her work, and she tried to show the challenges
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4:07 - 4:10that journalists face, from external sources,
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4:10 - 4:14their own internal biases, and cultural norms,
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4:14 - 4:16and she worked with an editor at National Public Radio
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4:16 - 4:19to try to get a story aired nationally.
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4:19 - 4:21She's not sure that would have happened
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4:21 - 4:23if the editor had not been a female.
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4:23 - 4:26Stories in the news are more than twice as likely
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4:26 - 4:29to present women as victims than men,
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4:29 - 4:31and women are more likely to be defined
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4:31 - 4:33by their body parts.
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4:33 - 4:36Wired magazine, November 2010.
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4:36 - 4:40Yes, the issue was about breast tissue engineering.
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4:40 - 4:44Now, I know you're all distracted, so I'll take that off. (Laughter)
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4:44 - 4:49Eyes up here. (Laughter)
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4:49 - 4:53So -- (Applause)
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4:53 - 4:55Here's the thing.
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4:55 - 4:58Wired almost never puts women on its cover.
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4:58 - 5:00Oh, there have been some gimmicky ones.
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5:00 - 5:02Pam from The Office.
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5:02 - 5:03Manga girls.
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5:03 - 5:07A voluptuous model covered in synthetic diamonds.
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5:07 - 5:10Texas State University professor Cindy Royal wondered
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5:10 - 5:13in her blog, "How are young women like her students
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5:13 - 5:17supposed to feel about their roles in technology reading Wired?"
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5:17 - 5:20Chris Anderson, the editor of Wired, defended his choice
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5:20 - 5:22and said, there aren't enough women, prominent women
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5:22 - 5:27in technology to sell a cover, to sell an issue.
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5:27 - 5:28Part of that is true. There aren't as many
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5:28 - 5:30prominent women in technology.
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5:30 - 5:33Here's my problem with that argument.
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5:33 - 5:35Media tells us every day what's important,
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5:35 - 5:38by the stories they choose and where they place them.
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5:38 - 5:40It's called agenda-setting.
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5:40 - 5:42How many people knew the founders of Facebook
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5:42 - 5:45and Google before their faces were on a magazine cover?
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5:45 - 5:48Putting them there made them more recognizable.
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5:48 - 5:51Now, Fast Company Magazine embraces that idea.
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5:51 - 5:54This is its cover from November 15, 2010.
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5:54 - 5:57The issue is about the most prominent and influential women
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5:57 - 5:58in technology.
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5:58 - 6:01Editor Robert Safian told the Poynter Institute,
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6:01 - 6:04"Silicon Valley is very white and very male,
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6:04 - 6:07but that's not what Fast Company thinks the business world
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6:07 - 6:10will look like in the future, so it tries to give a picture
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6:10 - 6:13of where the globalized world is moving."
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6:13 - 6:16By the way, apparently Wired took all this to heart.
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6:16 - 6:20This was its issue in April. (Laughter)
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6:20 - 6:23That's Limor Fried, the founder of Adafruit Industries,
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6:23 - 6:25in the Rosie the Riveter pose.
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6:25 - 6:28It would help to have more women in positions of leadership
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6:28 - 6:31in the media. A recent global survey found that
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6:31 - 6:3373 percent of the top media management jobs
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6:33 - 6:35are still held by men.
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6:35 - 6:38But this is also about something far more complex:
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6:38 - 6:42our own unconscious biases and blind spots.
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6:42 - 6:44Shankar Vedantam is the author of "The Hidden Brain:
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6:44 - 6:46How Our Unconscious Minds Elect Presidents,
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6:46 - 6:49Control Markets, Wage Wars, and Save Our Lives."
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6:49 - 6:52He told the former ombudsman
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6:52 - 6:53at National Public Radio, who was doing
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6:53 - 6:56a report on how women fare in NPR coverage,
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6:56 - 7:00unconscious bias flows throughout most of our lives.
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7:00 - 7:03It's really difficult to disentangle those strands.
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7:03 - 7:05But he did have one suggestion.
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7:05 - 7:08He used to work for two editors who said
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7:08 - 7:12every story had to have at least one female source.
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7:12 - 7:14He balked, at first, but said he eventually
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7:14 - 7:17followed the directive happily because his stories got better
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7:17 - 7:20and his job got easier.
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7:20 - 7:23Now, I don't know if one of the editors was a woman,
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7:23 - 7:25but that can make the biggest differences.
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7:25 - 7:29The Dallas Morning News won a Pulitzer Prize in 1994
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7:29 - 7:31for a series it did on women around the world,
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7:31 - 7:34but one of the reporters told me she's convinced
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7:34 - 7:36it never would have happened if they had not had
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7:36 - 7:39a female assistant foreign editor,
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7:39 - 7:41and they would not have gotten some of those stories
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7:41 - 7:44without female reporters and editors on the ground,
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7:44 - 7:47particularly one on female genital mutilation.
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7:47 - 7:50Men would just not be allowed into those situations.
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7:50 - 7:52This is an important point to consider,
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7:52 - 7:55because much of our foreign policy now revolves around
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7:55 - 7:58countries where the treatment of women is an issue,
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7:58 - 8:02such as Afghanistan.
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8:02 - 8:05What we're told in terms of arguments against leaving
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8:05 - 8:10this country is that the fate of the women is primary.
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8:10 - 8:12Now I'm sure a male reporter in Kabul can find women
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8:12 - 8:17to interview. Not so sure about rural, traditional areas,
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8:17 - 8:21where I'm guessing women can't talk to strange men.
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8:21 - 8:22It's important to keep talking about this
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8:22 - 8:25in light of Lara Logan.
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8:25 - 8:27She was the CBS News correspondent who was
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8:27 - 8:30brutally sexually assaulted in Egypt's Tahrir Square
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8:30 - 8:32right after this photo was taken.
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8:32 - 8:34Almost immediately, pundits weighed in
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8:34 - 8:38blaming her and saying things like, "You know,
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8:38 - 8:41maybe women shouldn't be sent to cover those stories."
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8:41 - 8:44I never heard anyone say this about Anderson Cooper
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8:44 - 8:48and his crew who were attacked covering the same story.
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8:48 - 8:50One way to get more women into leadership
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8:50 - 8:53is to have other women mentor them.
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8:53 - 8:55One of my board members is an editor at a major
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8:55 - 8:57global media company, but she never thought about this
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8:57 - 9:02as a career path until she met female role models at JAWS.
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9:02 - 9:05But this is not just a job for super-journalists,
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9:05 - 9:08or my organization. You all have a stake in a strong,
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9:08 - 9:10vibrant media.
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9:10 - 9:13Analyze your news, and speak up when there are gaps
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9:13 - 9:16missing in coverage like people at the New York Times did.
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9:16 - 9:19Suggest female sources to reporters and editors.
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9:19 - 9:22Remember, a complete picture of reality
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9:22 - 9:23may depend upon it.
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9:23 - 9:27And I'll leave you with a video clip that I first saw in [1987]
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9:27 - 9:29when I was a student in London.
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9:29 - 9:30It's for the Guardian newspaper.
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9:30 - 9:32It's actually long before I ever thought about
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9:32 - 9:34becoming a journalist, but I was very interested
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9:34 - 9:38in how we learn to perceive our world.
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9:38 - 9:41Narrator: An event seen from one point of view
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9:41 - 9:49gives one impression.
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9:49 - 9:50Seen from another point of view,
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9:50 - 9:55it gives quite a different impression.
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9:55 - 9:58But it's only when you get the whole picture
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9:58 - 10:03you can fully understand what's going on.
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10:03 - 10:05"The Guardian"
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10:05 - 10:07Megan Kamerick: I think you'll all agree
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10:07 - 10:11that we'd be better off if we all had the whole picture.
- Title:
- Women should represent women in media
- Speaker:
- Megan Kamerick
- Description:
-
How do you tell women’s stories? Ask women to tell them. At TEDxABQ, Megan Kamerick shows how the news media underrepresents women as reporters and news sources, and because of that tells an incomplete story. (Filmed at TEDxABQ.)
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDTalks
- Duration:
- 10:31
Krystian Aparta commented on English subtitles for Women should represent women in media | ||
Krystian Aparta edited English subtitles for Women should represent women in media | ||
Krystian Aparta edited English subtitles for Women should represent women in media | ||
Morton Bast commented on English subtitles for Women should represent women in media | ||
Morton Bast edited English subtitles for Women should represent women in media | ||
Thu-Huong Ha edited English subtitles for Women should represent women in media | ||
Thu-Huong Ha approved English subtitles for Women should represent women in media | ||
Thu-Huong Ha edited English subtitles for Women should represent women in media |
Morton Bast
Correction: At 9:23, the year should be 1987, not 2007.
Krystian Aparta
The English transcript was updated on 1/12/2016.