Senior research project: the females of journalism

By: Taylor King

The evolution of females in journalism is ongoing. Just in the past ten years things have changed drastically for women, in sports and in news.

Having the opportunity to conduct my own research, I was able to see the impact that females have on society in a lot of different ways and communication skills.

The raw research conducted of a survey to the students of QU and the general public and a phone interview of a former meteorologist on the females he has encountered during his time in the news.

First, the survey had a series of five questions, with one extended question on why or why not.

The results with come shocking to some, here is a graph showing the results of one of the questions asked in the survey.

Forms response chart. Question title: Do you see women more in hard news or sports" . Number of responses: 27 responses.

The figure above shows the percentage of where people see females, in hard news or in sports more. This piece of information is shocking because most people would see females in the light of sports reporting. But the people answering this survey say otherwise.

During the interview conducted, there were some shocking responses from this as well.

Former meteorologist, Jim Schnebelt, thinks the future is female.

“We had some really strong female anchors, journalist, reporters, even videographers very talented people. I worked with some female photographers that were very talented and creative. The female anchors could really hold their own especially when it came to their presence on the camera,” Schnebelt says.

Later in the interview, Schnebelt was asked, do you think times have changed since he was working in a newsroom? His response is compelling.

“Yes, if you watch Good Morning America between eight and nine in the morning all women, all the time. It is female subjects and female topics, it is like programming for women. Its sports too, we have women doing play-by-play, we didn’t have that ten years ago. You could say that it is female dominated and I don’t think that would be inaccurate,” Schnebelt explains.

Female dominated. Over the years the light of female journalist has changed for the better and their unique communication skills and style has impacted on the way society consumes their news.

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