Like a magic act, boys have somehow disappeared from much of the scholastic journalism landscape. How did this happen and how can we get them back?
By Marina Hendricks
Didn’t writing for the school paper used to be cool? Other students read your articles, laughed at your column, saw your byline. If you wrote a game story, the football players actually acknowledged you for the first time. If you reviewed the big school musical, you might have even conned your way into the cast party.
But something happened over the last few years. Writing for the school paper–the place that two-thirds of today’s journalists say they got their start–appears to have stopped being cool for boys.
“We consider it the biggest challenge for our program–bringing young males in,” says John Thomson, a senior editor at the Dayton (Ohio) Daily News and longtime coordinator of the paper’s blueprint-worthy New Leaders Program–giving area youth the chance to learn more about newspapers through hands-on experience. “I have been screaming bloody murder about this for some time. Nobody was paying attention. Now, they’re having to pay attention.”
Initial numbers can be deceiving. Men still hold a comfortable lead over women in newspaper editorial jobs. In the American Society of Newspaper Editors’ 2004 Newsroom Employment Survey, men outranked women by 34,017 to 20,177.
But as Baby Boomers retire and are replaced by members of Gen X and Gen Y, the gap between those totals may close fast. The reason? It clearly looks like more girls than boys are taking advantage of programs designed to recruit, educate and train future journalists.
In an informal survey recently conducted of 22 youth editors–at papers large and small all across the nation–the numbers are staggering. Fifteen of the 22 teen sections have staffs with at least twice the number of girls than boys. Seven have staffs with three times the amount of girls than boys. Fourteen staffs have 10 or less boys, while 18 have 14 or more girls.
Furthermore, a question recently was posted to the Journalism Education Association’s listserve about the gender breakdown of high school newspaper and yearbook staffs. Some of the more common responses were like these: “31 girls and five boys;” “30 percent boys, 70 percent girls;” “20 girls and zero boys;” “25 girls and 10 boys;” “Six girls for every boy in the beginning class, but in the production class the ratio is three girls to every boy.”
This constitutes a trend.
Thomson estimates that more than 1,000 young people have participated in his paper’s New Leaders program since it began 10 years ago. The idea is to nurture students who show aptitude in various disciplines–writing, art/design, technology–rather than to focus solely on those interested in journalism.
“If you go looking for 16-year-old wannabe journalists, you’re just not going to find them,” Thomson says. “[Professionals] think some 14-year-old is dying to be a night cops reporter, and if he isn’t–well, excuse me. If he wants to be a writer, then we say, ‘We can help you with that.’”
Despite the fact that the program has launched more than 200 successful careers and has helped the Dayton Daily News reach out to the underserved audiences in the community (Muslims, Arab-Americans, Vietnamese), Thomson cannot presently get past the lack of boys. He estimates that 80-90 percent of the people who now join New Leaders are girls.
“It just doesn’t seem to be something that boys are interested in right now,” he says. “As an industry, we need to find out what’s wrong and attempt to fix it.”
H.L. Hall, executive director and past president of JEA, says teachers themselves might account for the female advantage.
“There are more girls, in general, involved with high school newspapers. In part, it might be because there are more female teachers than males.”
Obviously, members of the Youth Editorial Alliance also have noticed how teen girls tend to dominate their staffs.
Of the 21 “interns” listed on her youth section’s masthead, Leigh Sprimont, youth editor of The Buzz, in The Sun in Charlotte Harbor, Fla., says that only four are boys.
“When I put out a call for interns prior to last summer, I had responses from approximately 25 teens, including [just] two boys. There is definitely a gender gap going on here,” e-mails Sprimont.
Dorothy Gilliam ran The Washington Post’s Young Journalists Development Program until her retirement in 2003. She now heads the Prime Movers program at the George Washington University School of Media and Public Affairs in Washington, D.C. Funded by the Knight Foundation, Prime Movers brings together high school students, GW interns and professional journalists for five-week training and mentoring sessions.
“There are fewer young men than young women, certainly,” Gilliam says when asked about the gender issue as she has observed it over the years. “Certainly, your journalism schools would bear that out as well.
“Hooking them early is one way to help counter that trend. Through the Post program, we were successful in getting quite a few young men to enter the field.”
At Kent State University in Ohio, the School of Journalism and Mass Communications currently has 739 female students and 460 male students.
By major, the breakdown is as follows: advertising, 89 females and 44 males; electronic media production, five and one; general journalism and mass communication, 23 and 13; news, 150 and 75; photo illustration, 50 and 16; pre-journalism and mass communication, 317 to 222; public relations,
78 and 12; television, 33 to 62; visual journalism, 37 and 14. So by major, only television has more males than females.
“Women see this as a good place to move up the ladder to management, especially in public relations,” says Jeff Fruit, SJMC director.
Candace Perkins Bowen, coordinator of Kent’s Scholastic Media Program, says there may be several issues involved with the lack of young males in journalism.
“Some earlier studies show a strong correlation between students who work on their high school media and choose that as a major in college. Thus, if the numbers of males are lower in high school, it’s logical they will be lower in college.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if the salary problems come into play. [The perception of] media salaries are notoriously low, and that might scare away males, who think they can find something more lucrative. Female options tend to be lower-paying, anyway, so why not media?”
Gilliam expresses a similar viewpoint. “I do think newspapers have to do a better job of paying young journalists,” she says. “Publishers have to see themselves in competition with other professions for these young men.”
As a selling point, Thomson says that once journalists are in the industry for a few years, salaries can measure up pretty well to other industries.
Carmen Musick, teen section editor for INK...News for Teens at the Kingsport (Tenn.) Times-News, says that she has seen a dropoff in boys since she has had less time to personally recruit them.
“We have three or four schools in our area where our contributors have really dried up for some reason,” she
writes in an e-mail. “Since I’ve moved from features to news (covering education), it has been a little more difficult for me to devote big chunks of my time to recruiting.
“I’ve always had more success recruiting male board members when I go out and talk to them–rather than issuing a call for volunteers or posting notices. Not sure why it seems to work better when I go out to schools and talk to them... Maybe they just prefer to be approached about it rather than stepping out on a limb to try out or sign up as a volunteer.
“Or it could be that so many of our teen staffs are dominated by girls that we just don’t offer enough to engage the guys as readers,” Musick continues. “If they don’t read the page, they’re certainly not going to join a staff. Right?”
As a potential solution, Musick recently held a workshop for potential new staffers.
“We’ve asked our current [student] board members
and correspondents to invite at least one friend, preferably ones interested in journalism like the school newspaper staffers, to join us for a Saturday workshop/work session,” she says. “Some of our reporters and editors will talk to them about journalism as a career and then we’ll have breakout sessions covering writing reviews, column writing and how students can ‘put it in ink.’ I’m hoping this will help [with recruiting boys].”
Bill Canacci of Teen Scene at the Home News Tribune in East Brunswick, N.J., has had mixed success.
“The main thing is to be passionate about the section and to believe in the kids,” he says. “You also need to find energetic students who want to participate–but you find those students by having a strong section.”
It’s the “if you build it, they will come” approach.
“If guys see other guys in the paper and see their bylines, they’re going to think it’s okay to participate,” Canacci says.
Marina Hendricks is teen editor at The Charleston (W.Va.) Gazette and past president of the Youth Editors Association of America (now the Youth Editorial Alliance).
Boy Oh Boys!
Here are 15 ideas for attracting more boys to your section.
1 Emphasize how important it is to get clips–for college, for a job, for girls. Whatever it takes.
2 Content is important. If guys see an overabundance of stories with a feminine slant in the section (fashion roundups, reviews of “chick flicks,” etc.), then they will dismiss it as something just for girls–and won’t want to get involved with it. Encourage your staff to do stories with unisex appeal. Even if a girl is writing the story, that doesn’t mean she can’t interview guys.
3 One student wrote about his feelings on the draft. Boys in particular seem to be really passionate about politics. So if you let them write about personal columns on what they’re passionate about, it usually works.
4 Every teen has a job (reporter, columnist, illustrator photographer...), and the guys are usually attracted to music reviews, movie reviews and video game reviews.
5 Offer empowerment. A couple youth editors say that they need to have guys’ viewpoints when deciding what focus and direction to take with a story. Make sure they know that their opinion will be valued.
6 Do whatever it takes to get them in the door. If that means offering a sports column or video game review, so be it. Maybe they’ll like the atmosphere and “conform” a bit later.
7 Talk to the sports team coaches. Some of the best sports articles come from the athletes who play. Who knows what kind of writer might be waiting for you under the shoulder pads or on top of the cleats. (No reason you can’t recruit girl athletes as well.)
8 If they’re not interested in the topics, have the topics come to them. Upend those stereotypes–
out with the prom, in with the science fair.
John Thomson of the Dayton Daily News offers these last seven tips. “This is what we call ‘The Method,’” he says. “It’s the technique we use for recruiting in any target group.”
9 Focus on local candidates.
10 Don’t look for wannabe “journalists.” Young people just don’t think about that. Look for young people with an interest in writing, current events, politics, technology, design, selling, operating large machines or any other topic that can be applied to newspapers. They’ll become newspaper people over time.
11 Recruit through the use of a network made up of colleagues and other professionals, like teachers and professors. Share your visions and needs with these recruiters and have them keep an eye out for good candidates. Referrals from this network will be your richest source of the candidates you’re looking for. Avoid mass audiences like schools and classrooms. They’ll burden you with candidates who don’t match your target profile.
12 Give personal attention to the candidates you want. A phone call, a conversation, a birthday card ... any sort of human acknowledgement goes a long way toward encouraging a young candidate. If they know you care about them, that makes all the difference.
13 Use every conceivable entry-level job as an opportunity to get them on the payroll; internship, editorial assistant, stringer, temp, part-time. Even a low-paid, part-time job is like a gold mine to a young male who wants a career path (and maybe some spending money).
14 Apply all these techniques while keeping an eye on what you want–be it young males, a more diverse staff, or more young people on the business side. Concentrate on that issue.
15 Ask a male writer or designer from your local paper to go speak to a class at the local middle school or high school. Having a good relationship between your paper and the local schools–including community colleges–will go a long way to recruiting quality young people.