Women and the Election Newscycle – Is 26% On-Air Enough?

Women are positioned as experts during morning show news coverage only 26 percent of the time, says the Women’s Media Center’s #WhoTalks analysis of on-air guests. The study identified relative gender bias found within primetime and morning television shows during the first quarter of this year.

While the average morning news broadcast featured men 74 percent of the time and women the aforementioned 26 percent, primetime news shows saw men featured 68 percent and women 32 percent of the time.

Compare these percentages to the 2012 election’s exit polls, where women comprised 53 percent of overall voter turnout, and a question rises to the surface: During this election season, is 26 percent nearly enough?

The challenge goes beyond on-air guests

When Cision published an analysis of U.S. election media influencers this week, we noted a similar gender gap in the journalists, editors and news hosts covering the election.

76 percent of the top 100 influencers were men; 24 percent were women. In the top 10, women fared a bit better with three women represented.

This is in line with previous studies that found women represent roughly a quarter of roles in news media and receive about the same amount of screen time.

What can news media and brands do about this?

As Julie Burton, president of the Women’s Media Center, explained in Status of Women in the U.S. Media, the issue of on-air gender balance must be addressed holistically.

“It is about making sure that who defines the story, who tells the story, and what the story is about, represents women and men equally,” said Burton. “This holds for bylines by gender and for sources quoted in stories, for women in front of the camera and behind the camera. It is our hope—and our work—to see those numbers reach parity.”

It’s not just the news media who can help achieve parity. Brands also can better position female leaders to be featured on news broadcasts as experts.

Here are four things your brand can start doing to position your experts during this election season and beyond:

1. Include more female leaders as voices in your press releases
2. Raise a speaker’s professional profile by positioning them as a voice at large corporate or industry events
3. Provide female leaders with the time and support needed to conduct leading industry research
4. Use your PR team to pitch an executive’s expertise to the media directly and to respond to more media requests

Furthermore, when you know more about the media you’re reaching out to, you can expect better results.

Using Cision’s media database and research tools, we analyzed 2,900 journalists to find out who is leading this election season’s news coverage. Get those results by downloading  the Top 100 2016 Election Journalists, Editors and Media Influencers.

With this media research in hand, you’ll not only gain more insight into the demographics, interests and backgrounds of America’s political journalists, you’ll also be able to pitch them more effectively.

Author James Rubec, Cision Content Strategist, is a content marketer, researcher and brand journalist who for the past year with Cision has told data stories about global news events, public affairs and what motivates people to take action. This builds off five years as an award winning public relations professional and journalist working out of Canada. Every great story has data behind it; when you find a way to share both, that’s where brands win!

#WhoTalks chart sourced from the Women’s Media Center, where a copy of the full infographic can be found.

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