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Women in Communications: Journalism By Abby Bertumen If Ann Curry taught me one thing, OK two things, they were these: beware of people who claim to add cultural diversity to the mainstream news world but then mock how their immigrant mother speaks English in a formal speech they are giving before a college student body. What are the chances that Asians and half-Asians (like myself) would be in the crowd and be a little upset at the use of Asian immigrants for the butt of jokes? Sorry, Ann, I guess it was just one of those tough rooms. The second thing: we must be careful who educates our future journalists and writers; it is especially important that the work of women journalists with a consciousness be part of journalism curricula today because the mainstream media is wrought with corporate, white male news and perspectives. So at the undergraduate and graduate levels of journalism education, it is integral to have the sort of diverse, alternative, outlooks that women, people of different ethnicities and those who have worked extensively in alternative journalism provide. The Ithaca College journalism program has lost one, and may be about to lose another, of its women faculty-the only two women in the journalism program. Jill Swenson, a tenured professor who has been here for 8 years, was recently moved to the media studies program. Administrators may argue that she is not being taken away from the journalism department because she came to this college as a media studies professor, however, Swenson has consistently taught Intro to Mass Media, Intro to Journalism, Journalism Research and Issues in the News and some of the media studies classes she has taught have crossed over into journalism. However, she will be teaching no journalism classes next semester, nor will she be teaching such media studies/journalism classes as Issues in the News. And, because the journalism program is about to become a department, Intro to Mass Media will be done away with as a requirement for journalism majors. The other female professor, Carolyn Byerly, may not be granted tenure. So, foreseeably, by the end of next year, the journalism faculty will consist of all males. The department plans to begin advertising for a professor in the fall, but it is important that journalism students advocate for the hiring of a female professor, otherwise the professorial body of journalism may remain a homogenized bunch, save for Peter Kareithi, a journalism professor from Kenya. Associate Dean of the Park School, Virginia Mansfield-Richardson, who has had experience at the Washington Post, will be teaching a course next semester in Asian media, but her position as journalism professor can only be considered temporary because of the responsibility of her initial job. The new Park Distinguished Chair, Jo Ann Caplin, is a woman who happens to be a journalist, having Emmy-award winning experience as a television producer, but her status also must be deemed temporary because, as of now, her position is also limited by time. Also, the fact that the Park Distinguished Chair is a woman raises important issues in the selecting of journalism faculty. Just because she is a woman, who's to say that the new Park chair won't support the same mainstream media values put in place by the corporate, male structure? Working in high-profile, mainstream media, she certainly runs the risk of that. Swenson and Byerly bring a valuable aspect to journalism education at Ithaca College, not just as women, but as journalists who have worked and studied in different facets of the industry-both mainstream and alternative. Byerly, in her classes, repeatedly addresses the importance of not only a different and more in-depth coverage of women's issues, but also critical analysis and re-shaping of reporting on other issues such as foreign policy and the media's coverage of people other than the white corporate heads. What's most appalling in Byerly's case is that the question of whether or not she is to get tenure seems to lie on the opinions espoused by students in the teacher evaluation, opinions which would be justifiable valid if they discussed her style of teaching. However, the majority of the comments were critical of the issues: feminist, gay, and leftist that Byerly incorporated into her classes-saying she had some sort of an "agenda." When are we going to learn that activist journalism is just as legitimate in journalism curricula as the study of the mainstream media? In my ethics class last semester, I was surprised at how many students had not looked critically at the great discrepancy in the World Trade Organization coverage-with much of the individual airtime given to WTO officials versus the portrayal of the protesters as screaming, destructive masses in the streets. Journalism students would have been lacking an important part of their education had Byerly not introduced it. Swenson and Byerly, as women journalists, have challenged the "status quo" (a generic term, yes, but analyze any form of mainstream media and you'll know it exists) of journalism. And it is important to have such professors, and in Ithaca College's case, women professors, who address these issues. The majority of the students in the journalism major are female, and we need and must keep the strong female journalism professors who teach all of the journalism students about upturning the tiresome mainstream media model. We, especially as female journalists, don't need to be told to simply "go with the flow" in the corporate media model, being strong, yes, in the faces of its indi vidual chauvinism, but ultimately reporting on its terms. Abby Bertumen is so alt.media it hurts. |
