Journalists, Print Media

In the 21st century, women are now well established as newspaper reporters. In the United States, women comprise 37 percent of the full-time staff of daily newspapers, 36.9 percent at weeklies, and 43.5 percent at newsmagazines. Their status is not equal to men's, however, especially at the uppermost rungs of the print hierarchy. Overall, women earn about 20 percent less than men. A “glass ceiling” has been cracked, but it blocks women's promotion to key decision-making positions and to high-prestige areas of journalism that men have long seen as their domain, such as politics, business, and sports.

Women are disproportionately found in small-town, regional, and community newspapers-especially weeklies-and in low-status, “soft” areas, such as human-interest stories and features. Nor has the shift to professionalism in journalism ...