Serious
role models come before gender
From NEWS LETTER July 15th, 1999
The Northern Ireland Women's European Platform report, Reading Between the
Lines: A Report on Political Women and the Press, has generated debate on
press coverage of women in politics, much of it negative. Robin Whitaker,
author of the report, bites back.
The response from many politically-active women to Reading Between the Lines
has been positive. Certain newspaper editors and columnists have been less
enthusiastic. Perhaps this is to be expected. Regarding a finding that most
Belfast candidates surveyed were dissatisfied with their coverage, News
Letter editor Geoff Martin said: "I would have a problem, more crucial than the gender debate, if candidates were satisfied with their coverage."
It might be similarly worrying from NIWEP's point of view if the press was
entirely happy with the report. "Women will be news when they are news"
reads the headline above the News Letter editorial comment on the report
and that is the heart of its criticism. The views of female politicians,
Mr Martin says, will be sought when they are "the most relevant people to approach".
They will be the subject of editorial commentary, "if they have done something newsworthy". Women will attract coverage if they are "involved in energetic and newsworthy campaigns". The trouble with this argument is that the media itself plays "a major role in defining the political landscape (and) determining what kind of person is seen as a politician", as the report puts it.
The News Letter message is that women will get coverage when they are serious
politicians. But that ignores the media's power in determining who the real
politicians are. For obvious reasons it is difficult to identify those instances
when women, having done or said something 'energetic and newsworthy', are
overlooked by the press.
In terms of the coverage women do get, Mr Martin argues that female candidates,
getting a mention in 17.5 per cent of stories and 16.5 per cent of photos
featuring election candidates in the period surveyed, are not seriously
underrepresented (in the 1997 Westminster and Council elections, one in
five candidates were women). This point is repeated by Suzanne Breen in
her News Letter column.
Neither mentions that this coverage was concentrated in the local weekly
papers. It was a key finding of the study that the three dailies, with their
powerful influence on people's understanding of politics, covered women
at a much lower rate during the 1997 elections. In the case of the News
Letter, female candidates feature in just 7 per cent of campaign related
stories - and then rarely with any prominence.
Women were missing altogether from campaign coverage in nearly two-thirds
of the 44 News Letter editions surveyed. Ms Breen and Mr Martin also overlook
the finding that female candidates appear in only 13 per cent of all stories
attributed to a journalist or editor. Again, the figures are lower for the
daily papers: 7.5 per cent in the case of the News Letter; 8.5 per cent
in the Belfast Telegraph and 10.5 per cent in the Irish News. This category
is significant for, more than any other, it involves active editorial and
journalistic choices about who and what is worth covering about what counts
as serious politics in Northern Ireland.
Editorial comment concentrates on the big issues. The gender of those involved
is irrelevant, Mr Martin states. Apparently none of the women standing in
the 1997 Westminster or local elections had anything important to contribute
to the big issues. In the period surveyed, not a single female candidate
is mentioned in a News Letter editorial, though their male counterparts
regularly feature in the 'Morning View'.
This pattern held for virtually every paper surveyed. The study notes that
only one woman, Iris Robinson, got substantial attention during the Westminster
election. Mr Martin and Ms Breen explain that she was the only woman with
a real chance of success. But this does not account for women's marginalisation
in the paper's coverage of the 1997 council elections. Indeed, women are
completely missing from 11 of its 26 district council profiles, including
some cases where they were up to a quarter of the candidates. |
