Women shorted by news programs

“Hillary Clinton would probably not be amused by these results,” notes a study released Friday by Media Tenor.

The German news analysis group found that broadcasters are not particularly intrigued by women, women’s issues, famous women and womanly deeds.

Of 392,374 news stories that appeared on American, British, German and South African television during a 21-month period, only 35,957 mentioned women, the study found. That translates to 14 percent.

Most of the women who garnered coverage were politicians or cabinet ministers, though Martha Stewart at least attracted the attention of American broadcasters.

“Some editors would argue the media coverage only reflects the significance of women in society,” the study reasoned. “Of course, introducing affirmative action into news reports would be ridiculous.”

The Bonn-based group analyzed broadcasts between January 2002 and last September on CBS, ABC, NBC, Britain’s BBC and ITV, and Germany’s ProSieben Nachrichten, among 20 networks.

Some hypocrisy is afoot, the group claims.

“The news formats do not even remotely reflect the real power distribution in respective parliaments, governments and universities,” their study notes, and lambastes Germans, who lead the pack of female-shirking broadcasters.

“Women’s right advocates had no ground to complain about the lack of female presence in [German] government cabinets, and men had long lost their position as the authorities in universities,” the study scolded. “Despite all this, the share of coverage on women is only 12 percent.”

The three U.S. networks are not much better, placing a close second with 13 percent of their stories based around women. South Africa followed at 16 percent and Britain at 17 percent.

“Women and their day-to-day life alone do not seem worth the news,” the study continued.

But broadcasters do pay attention to women in certain contexts.

In the United States, for example, women-themed news centered most often around health topics, followed by international politics, crime, safety, society, justice, environment, catastrophes, party politics and celebrity appearances.

In Britain, the stories centered on justice, followed by crime, health topics, society, international politics, catastrophes, education, domestic politics, research and culture.

Queen Elizabeth II and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice made it to the top-10 lists of most-covered women in Britain, Germany and the United States, the study found, concluding it “shows how few women are able to generate a significant degree of media attention.”

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, New York Democrat, was on U.S. and British lists, ranking third and eighth, respectively.

Media Tenor Ltd. calls for broadcasters to self-police by including more woman-friendly topics in their news mix.

“News editors could regularly verify whether or not topics such as education, health care or judicial issues were covered. This would automatically increase the share of women in prime-time news,” they advised.

The complete report can be viewed at the group’s Web site, www.mediatenor.com.