`The A.P. News Trust's Special Influence: A 1990s Look At The Associated Press'--Part 5

(The following article originally appeared in the July 7, 1993 issue of the now-defunct Lower East Side alternative weekly, Downtown).

As Downtown (6/24/92) has previously noted, former Watergate Scandal investigative reporter Carl Bernstein, in an unpublicized 1977 Rolling Stone magazine article entitled “The C.I.A. And The Media,” wrote that: “Other organizations which cooperated with the C.I.A. include the American Broadcasting Company [ABC], the National Broadcasting Company [NBC], the Associated Press…”

Like other Big Media organizations, A.P. also has a long history of discrimination against women. A study by Lucy Komisar, cited in Women And The Mass Media by Matilda Butler and William Paisley, revealed that in 1970 at A.P. there were “no women in management positions and no women heading any of the 38 domestic or 6 foreign bureaus” and at A.P.’s Mid-town Manhattan office there were only “7 women out of 52 editors and reporters” in 1970. Women And The Mass Media also noted that in 1972 Time magazine reported that U.S. women were only “11 percent of Associated Press’s nationwide news staff of 1050.”

The same book also revealed that “in 1973, the Wire Services Guild charged the Associated Press [A.P.] with discriminating against its female and minority members” and that “In May 1978, the EEOC found that A.P. did discriminate by not recruiting, hiring and promoting women” and “did not hire minorities as newspeople.” Women And The Mass Media also noted that “EEOC data for the end of 1977” showed that “males are 100 percent of the assistant bureau chiefs, 98 percent of the bureau chiefs, 97 percent of the correspondents, 90 percent of the news editors, and 85 percent of the newspeople.”

In the early 1990s, about 88 percent of A.P.’s U.S. bureau chiefs were still male, as were 75 percent of A.P.’s U.S. correspondents. All but two of the seats on A.P.’s board of directors were also still filled by men. And A.P.’s chairman, vice-chairman, president and general manager, as well as its six vice-presidents, were still all men in the early 1990s. (end of part 5)

(Downtown 7/7/93)

Next: The A.P. News Trust’s Special Influence: A 1990s Look At The Associated Press—Part 6