Eat The Press

Public Eye, You Know I Love You, But For God's Sake, There Are WOMEN In Media!

Huffington Post |  Rachel Sklar |  Posted Friday August 4, 2006 at 12:56 PM

I was flattered a few weeks ago to be invited to submit the "Outside Voices" column at the CBS Public Eye blog, which every week features commentary from a media observer outside of CBS. Prior to writing my column, I reviewed the previous entries, and realized to my amazement that they were almost exclusively authored by men. I noted as much at the end of my column: "P.S. Public Eye: This column runs weekly. I should NOT be the third woman who's done it since OCTOBER." to which was appended this response: "Editor's Note: It's not for lack of trying, but we'll re-double our efforts to find a 'wide variety of voices'".

Now. I hate to harp, but I have been keeping an eye on the column, and note today that this is the SIXTH male-authored column since my entry on June 23, 2006. I have no quibble with Messrs. Powers, Fenton, Barnhart, McLaughlin, Josseloff and this week's Vaina, but come on. It can't be THAT hard to mix it up. We've got a lovely and robust and diverse profession, let's celebrate it, whee! And, profession, when Public Eye asks you to step on up and write that column, step on up and rock it like you mean it. I don't really know what that last sentence means but the phrase "rock it like you mean it" is never inappropriate. It is, however, inappropriate for a media-watching blog to have a column about media that is so uniformly homogeneous.