Pressing for attention

Offers a look at Women are Good News, an organization that demands equitable representation in the broadcast media of women candidates. Co-founder Nancy DeStefanis; Statistics on women in the population and registered voters; Want a proportional number of women commentators; Difficulty women candidates have raising money without proper television coverage.

By PT Staff, published on July 01, 1992

FAIR COVERAGE

As female candidates amass voter support during campaigns, their press secretaries work the sidelines. To combat biased coverage that distorts platforms, and overemphasizes close races and mudslinging, they quietly woo reporters in the local and national media.

Nancy, DeStafanis prefers a more direct approach. After discovering test November that 85% of the journalists on public television are white males, she co-founded Women are Good News, a San Francisco organization that demands equitable representation in the broadcast media.

"Women make up 53% of the population and 54% of registered voters," DeStefanis says. "We want to see a proportional number of women commentators, reporters, and experts covering politics on public television." If voters don't insist on equality in public-affairs programming, "they'll get a skewed, unbalanced perspective of women candidates being dismissed or treated in a diminished fashion by a male-dominated media."

In addition, without balanced TV coverage, many women candidates have difficulty raising money for their campaigns. Meanwhile, the print media will continue to distort or ignore a female candidate's campaign if women politicians fail to take credit for their accomplishments as men do, insists lane Danowitz, executive director of The Women's Campaign Fund, a non-profit committee that supports and trains women politicians.

She urges viewers to call the editorial desk whenever TV commentators treat the political races of female candidates as anecdotal or rarefied "comic duels."