In-Depth: Women and the Future of the News

August 17, 2006

As “citizen journalist” bloggers, newsmagazines, and whatever the hell they’re showing on Fox continue to raise questions about media integrity- there’s been a lot of talk about how news will be shaped in the future. The answers remain to be seen, but one thing seems certain: Women will be the ones who shape it.

When I tell this to Mary Alice Williams, she says, “I’ll tell you a secret. They always have.”

Williams is a mother of three daughters. She was the first woman to win an Emmy for anchoring the NBC Nightly News. She was Vice President in charge of CNN’s New York Bureau. She is currently a correspondent at CBS Radio, the lead anchor at Discovery Health, and interestingly, the inspiration behind the “Desperate Housewives” narrator, Mary Alice Young.

When CNN was starting out, in 1985, the staffers referred to the New York Bureau as “Petticoat Junction.” It was the first time that women were almost completely running the show, and Mary Alice Williams was the pioneer who made it work.

“I didn’t have the option of restricting my recruiting to roughly half of the brain pool -- I had to use the whole brain pool, and there were so many smart women out there who wanted to work really hard…and many of them (were) far more collegial than some of the men. The New York Bureau was overwhelmingly female, and we were supposed to do only business news, but we ended up building an empire.”

To quote Linda Ellerbee: “And so it goes.”

Women bring not only a markedly different energy to media, but a shift in the content -- the kind of stories that are offered. Take, for example, Daryn Kagan, a 12-year CNN veteran who anchors two hours of news coverage from Atlanta each weekday morning. Kagan will be leaving the network on Sept. 1st to set up a Web site devoted to, get this: Good news.

''I think there is a void in the straight news business now, (which is) lacking a certain spirituality …I think most
people live in a space where they are looking for meaning in life and good in the world and that is not necessarily reflected in straight news coverage right now.''

Even newer is the idea that spirituality is not necessarily monopolized by one organized religion. Kagan’s site is not affiliated with any religious group, although she certainly welcomes people who are religious to visit. She expects to include audio, video and print reports.

The content will be similar to that featured in ''Your Spirit,'' a regular segment on her CNN program. Over this summer, for example, she has profiled Daniel Gottlieb, a quadriplegic who wrote letters to his autistic grandson collected in the book ''Letters to Sam: A Grandfather's Lesson on Love, Loss, and the Gifts of Life.'' She also interviewed a laid-off flight attendant who walks the streets of Atlanta twirling a baton.

But what about the weathergirl? What about the "Lades of Channel Five" calendar?

Female journalists, particularly ones that an audience could see, have struggled for credibility since they were introduced. And now CBS has adopted Katie Couric to anchor it's nightly news. Clearly, the change is underway, as CBS takes this opportunity to introduce a variety of new conventions. When the “CBS Evening News'' re-invents itself on Sept. 5, it will include a regular commentary segment called ''Free Speech'' .

The segment will not feature the opinion of CBS or it’s producers -- the goal is to “offer a new and transparent outlet for the incredible variety and diversity of voices in this country,” says an executive producer. Which means: anyone can do it. From other news anchors to some guy they find in the park.

A good deal of the press surrounding Katie's take-over has been about whether she is cutely serious, or seriously cute. CBS sent her cross country, seeking opinions from viewers on what could be done to improve the viewer’s relationship to the broadcast. CBS wants her to be taken seriously, but they want to include her trademark perkiness in the equation. This is no easy task.

Couric has told Reuters that she is sticking with the name “Katie” and not changing it to “Katherine” like she tried in her early days of “Today.” Is it really that simple? Or has the American audience changed enough to demand that Katie Couric find a way of broadcasting the nightly news without the glow of her coffee mug and bran muffin?

Overwhelmingly, says Mary Alice, women bring a different sensibility to the task of reporting the news. She is careful to say that it is different and not better.

“Women are more directly related to the policy that is being discussed.” She is not wrong, and goes on to make the point that for the first time in American history, women are the purchasers of the biggest-ticket items in the household. Outside of the medical industry, it is women who are the most well-educated health care providers - increasingly taking care of both their children and their parents. Women are paying more attention to the news because they are paying more attention to the issues that actively shape their lives.

So, why now? Mary Alice puts it in perspective this way:

“In 1996, there was this term coined: ‘soccer moms.’ And its original meaning was about power. It was about women who coalesced on the soccer field and discussed issues that affected them. And then, almost immediately, that became dangerous to give women that much power, and so the term was suddenly turned on its end, and it became about how mothers are these powerless entities. Two is company. Three is a revolution. Wait until 2006. Wait until the ‘Soccer Mom Election.’”