.The Future of News? A White, Woefully Male Tale

Last week, PBS’ Frontline, based at UC Berkeley’s J-School, aired the fourth and final episode of News War, a series tackling a ghastly topic: the future of journalism. A description from the show’s Web site: “Drawing on more than 80 interviews with key figures in the print, broadcast and electronic media … FRONTLINE [and J-school prof] correspondent Lowell Bergman examines the challenges facing the mainstream news media… “

All it takes to discern one major problem facing the media is to check out Frontline‘s online interviews. A glance at the photographs accompanying the 64 Q&As depicts a dismally bland future, and an explanation for why more and more Americans are canceling their newspaper subscriptions and tuning into uber-diverse American Idol rather than American TV news programs. Fifty-nine of Frontline‘s “key figures” are men. Five are women. And all but two are Caucasian.

Alicia Shepard offers some insight (and some intriguing stats) on men’s domination of the media, and Frontline‘s willingness to eat it up, over at the Huffington Post.

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