ABSTRACT
Critics tend to focus on the alleged institutional sexism within the media industries as a crucial factor behind the coverage of women. A survey by Liz Curtis (1994) found serious cases of sexual harassment of women within the BBC and other broadcasting organisations, while research by Margareta Melin-Higgins (1997) found women alienated by the dominant male newsroom culture. Former managing director at the Independent Amanda Platell (1999: 144) talks of institutional sexism as being ‘endemic’ in newspapers:
The percentage of women on national dailies remains low at 22. Mirror editor Piers Morgan in October 1998 said his newspaper employed just 62 women to 204 men, though female staff had quadrupled over the last 15 years. But magazines often employ more women than men. At Condé Nast, of 480 employees only 50 were men and only four of those in senior man-
agement. Women also comprise 44 per cent of journalists in independent television, 38 per cent in independent radio and 37 per cent at the BBC (Franklin 1997: 61). The numbers of women trainees are rising all the time: by 2000, half the entrants to newspapers were female. And the 1990s also witnessed a few advances for women in the mainstream press. In May 1991, Eve Pollard became the first woman editor of the Sunday Express while Rosie Boycott, in April 1998, became the first woman editor of a broadsheet (the struggling Independent on Sunday) before moving on, first to edit the Independent and then – in April 1998 – the struggling Express.
