Where Does Hillary Go From Here? My radio segment on KPFA with Amanda Marcotte and Kim Gandy (and how WIMN made it happen)
|
Posted by Shireen Mitchell June 14th, 2008 |
The other day, I participated in a debate on San Francisco’s KPFA “The Morning Show” , a discussion about, among other things, how Hillary Clinton will participate in the campaign ahead, the role of media sexism up until now, differences between feminist who supported Clinton and feminists who supported Barack Obama, and more.
Host Aimee Allison spoke to Amanda Marcotte, who runs the popular feminist blog Pandagon, Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women and me (for those of you new to WIMN’s Voices and haven’t read my posts here before, I’m Shireen Mitchell, founder of Digital Sisters/Sistas Inc. and Vice Chair, National Council of Women’s Organizations (NCWO):
I wanted to post this audio for a few reasons. First, it shows the kind of reasonable, respectful and insightful discussion that happens in independent broadcast media, where strong, uncompromising journalism that can actually educate and inform listeners is more important to the journalistic bottom line than profit. When you listen to this radio segment, compare the tone and the depth of the discussion to the screaming and fluff you get on most of the FM radio dial and on network and cable TV news, where’s it’s all about making money for advertisers and for corporate owners of Fox, CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, etc., and little to do with solid journalism.
I also wanted to call attention to this show as an example of the really crucial behind the scenes work Women In Media & News does every day to improve the public debate, to help journalists produce more informative and more accurate news, and to increase the quantity and diversity of women’s voices that appear in the media. This whole show basically happened because of WIMN’s POWER Sources Project, which connects journalists and media producers with a diverse national network of hundreds of women experts who can serve as sources for print, broadcast and online news stories. WIMN hooks journalists up with women experts not just when reporters are looking for “a woman’s perspective” on “a woman’s issue,” but just in general, for every kind of story, whether it’s war or economics or blue collar work or international trade or pop culture or whatever. It’s one of the ways that Women In Media & News works to challenge (and correct) the widely-documented underrepresentation of women’s voices in the media.
Anyway, not a lot of people know how much effort this sort of behind the scenes advocacy takes, but as a POWER Source I can tell you, it’s paying off for me and for many of the women in the project, and it’s really helping to change the way journalism features women. So, here are some examples. I was interviewed for two online newspapers. One on the power of the Internet and politics with sister WIMN Voices Bloggers The Internet, Politics and Power of the People and the other Google Gives Voicemail to Homeless in SF Trial Run where the reporter was happy to get the violence against women angle for the piece. This also worked when KPFA’s producer called WIMN asking for Jennifer Pozner to be on the show about Hillary Clinton, but instead, Jenn used that as an opportunity to pitch a wider-ranging segment between several feminists who supported Clinton and Obama yet who all are committed to working for women’s rights and other social justice concerns during and after the election. What resulted was the kind of conversation that rarely gets heard in the media: an African American grassroots technology and media activist and also a DC women’s coalition leader, an independent feminist progressive blogger, and the president of the most well-known women’s organization in the country, all with different ideas and opinions about what is in women’s best interests and what is in our country’s best interests, but all committed to figuring out these sticky issues for the benefit of all of us.
Give a listen to the segment and give your feedback. (And, if you value the kind of diverse, informative journalism that WIMN helps to midwife — where women’s voices are intrinsic to every story — please consider supporting WIMN now.)
June 15th, 2008 22:09
[…] As moderator of the recent “There Is No Media Justice Without Women: Strategies for Feminist Social Justice Media Activism” session at the 2008 National Conference on Media Reform, one of the things I discussed (partial audio here) was how WIMN’s POWER (Perspectives Of Women Expand Reporting) Sources Project exists to help amplify the quantity and diversity of women’s voices appearing in the public debate. This project was founded as a sort of win-win strategy for improving women’s representations in the media: we help journalists find well-informed experts for stories about everything from public policy to plumbing, and the happy byproduct is that news consumers don’t always have to understand “expert” as synonymous with “male” (or “white”). Why is this important? Because too many news outlets — not only corporate media, but some of our progressive and independent publications as well — still marginalize women as sources and experts in their stories, as decision-makers on the mastheads and as commentators on the op-ed pages. This is especially true for women of color, whose opinions are largely invisible in the pundit class. […]