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Like most journalists, I'm an idealist.

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I love unearthing good stories,[br]especially untold stories.

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I just didn't think that in 2011,

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women would still be in that category.

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I'm the President of the Journalism[br]and Women Symposium -- JAWS.

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That's Sharky.

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(Laughter)

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I joined 10 years ago[br]because I wanted female role models,

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and I was frustrated by the lagging status[br]of women in our profession

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and what that meant[br]for our image in the media.

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We make up half[br]the population of the world,

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but we're just 24 percent[br]of the news subjects

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quoted in news stories.

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And we're just 20 percent[br]of the experts quoted in stories.

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And now, with today's technology,

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it's possible to remove women[br]from the picture completely.

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This is a picture of President[br]Barack Obama and his advisors,

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tracking the killing of Osama bin Laden.

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You can see Hillary Clinton on the right.

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Let's see how the photo ran

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in an Orthodox Jewish[br]newspaper based in Brooklyn.

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Hillary's completely gone.

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(Laughter)

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The paper apologized,[br]but said it never runs photos of women;

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they might be sexually provocative.

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(Laughter)

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This is an extreme case, yes.

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But the fact is,

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women are only 19 percent[br]of the sources in stories on politics,

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and only 20 percent[br]in stories on the economy.

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The news continues to give us a picture

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where men outnumber women

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in nearly all occupational[br]categories, except two:

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students and homemakers.

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(Laughter)

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So we all get a very[br]distorted picture of reality.

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The problem is, of course,[br]there aren't enough women in newsrooms.

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They report at just 37 percent of stories[br]in print, TV and radio.

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Even in stories on gender-based violence,

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men get an overwhelming majority[br]of print space and airtime.

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Case in point:

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This March, the New York Times[br]ran a story by James McKinley

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about a gang rape of a young girl,

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11 years old, in a small Texas town.

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McKinley writes that[br]the community is wondering,

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"How could their boys[br]have been drawn into this?"

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"Drawn into this" --

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like they were seduced[br]into committing an act of violence.

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And the first person he quotes says,

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"These boys will have to live[br]with this the rest of their lives."

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(Groans, laughter)

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You don't hear much[br]about the 11-year-old victim,

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except that she wore clothes[br]that were a little old for her

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and she wore makeup.

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The Times was deluged with criticism.

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Initially, it defended itself,

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and said, "These aren't our views.

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This is what we found in our reporting."

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Now, here's a secret[br]you probably know already:

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Your stories are constructed.

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As reporters, we research, we interview.

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We try to give a good picture of reality.

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We also have our own unconscious biases.

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But The Times makes it sound like anyone[br]would have reported this story

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the same way.

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I disagree with that.

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So three weeks later,

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The Times revisits the story.

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This time, it adds another byline[br]to it with McKinley's:

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Erica Goode.

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What emerges is a truly sad, horrific tale

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of a young girl and her family[br]trapped in poverty.

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She was raped numerous times by many men.

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She had been a bright, easygoing girl.

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She was maturing quickly, physically,

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but her bed was still covered[br]with stuffed animals.

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It's a very different picture.

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Perhaps the addition of Ms. Goode[br]is what made this story more complete.

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The Global Media Monitoring Project[br]has found that stories by female reporters

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are more likely to challenge stereotypes[br]than those by male reporters.

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At KUNM here in Albuquerque,

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Elaine Baumgartel[br]did some graduate research

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on the coverage of violence against women.

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What she found was many of these[br]stories tend to blame victims

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and devalue their lives.

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They tend to sensationalize,[br]and they lack context.

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So for her graduate work,

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she did a three-part series[br]on the murder of 11 women,

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found buried on Albuquerque's West Mesa.

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She tried to challenge those patterns[br]and stereotypes in her work

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and she tried to show[br]the challenges that journalists face

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from external sources,[br]their own internal biases

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and cultural norms.

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And she worked with an editor[br]at National Public Radio

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to try to get a story aired nationally.

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She's not sure that would have happened[br]if the editor had not been a female.

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Stories in the news

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are more than twice as likely[br]to present women as victims than men,

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and women are more likely to be defined[br]by their body parts.

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Wired magazine, November 2010.

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Yes, the issue was about[br]breast-tissue engineering.

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Now I know you're all distracted,[br]so I'll take that off.

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(Laughter)

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Eyes up here.

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(Laughter)

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So --

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(Applause)

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Here's the thing:

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Wired almost never puts[br]women on its cover.

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Oh, there have been some gimmicky ones --

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Pam from "The Office,"

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manga girls,

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a voluptuous model[br]covered in synthetic diamonds.

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Texas State University professor[br]Cindy Royal wondered in her blog

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how are young women like her students[br]supposed to feel about their roles

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in technology, reading Wired.

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Chris Anderson, the editor of Wired,[br]defended his choice

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and said there aren't enough women,[br]prominent women

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in technology to sell a cover,[br]to sell an issue.

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Part of that is true,

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there aren't as many[br]prominent women in technology.

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Here's my problem with that argument:

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Media tells us every day what's important,

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by the stories they choose[br]and where they place them;

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it's called agenda setting.

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How many people knew[br]the founders of Facebook and Google

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before their faces[br]were on a magazine cover?

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Putting them there[br]made them more recognizable.

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Now, Fast Company Magazine[br]embraces that idea.

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This is its cover from November 15, 2010.

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The issue is about the most prominent[br]and influential women in technology.

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Editor Robert Safian[br]told the Poynter Institute,

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"Silicon Valley is very white[br]and very male.

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But that's not what Fast Company thinks

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the business world[br]will look like in the future,

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so it tries to give a picture[br]of where the globalized world is moving."

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By the way, apparently,[br]Wired took all this to heart.

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This was its issue in April.

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(Laughter)

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That's Limor Fried, the founder[br]of Adafruit Industries,

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in the Rosie the Riveter pose.

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It would help to have more women[br]in positions of leadership in media.

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A recent global survey

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found that 73 percent[br]of the top media-management jobs

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are still held by men.

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But this is also about something[br]far more complex:

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our own unconscious[br]biases and blind spots.

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Shankar Vedantam is the author

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of "The Hidden Brain: How Our Unconscious[br]Minds Elect Presidents,

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Control Markets, Wage Wars,[br]and Save Our Lives."

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He told the former ombudsman[br]at National Public Radio,

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who was doing a report[br]on how women fare in NPR coverage,

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unconscious bias flows[br]throughout most of our lives.

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It's really difficult[br]to disentangle those strands.

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But he did have one suggestion.

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He used to work for two editors

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who said every story had to have[br]at least one female source.

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He balked at first,

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but said he eventually followed[br]the directive happily,

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because his stories got better

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and his job got easier.

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Now, I don't know if one[br]of the editors was a woman,

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but that can make the biggest difference.

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The Dallas Morning News[br]won a Pulitzer Prize in 1994

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for a series it did on women[br]around the world,

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but one of the reporters told me

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she's convinced[br]it never would have happened

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if they had not had[br]a female assistant foreign editor,

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and they would not have gotten[br]some of those stories

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without female reporters[br]and editors on the ground,

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particularly one[br]on female genital mutilation --

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men would just not be allowed[br]into those situations.

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This is an important point to consider,

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because much of our foreign policy[br]now revolves around countries

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where the treatment of women is an issue,

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such as Afghanistan.

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What we're told in terms of arguments[br]against leaving this country

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is that the fate of the women is primary.

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Now, I'm sure a male reporter in Kabul[br]can find women to interview.

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Not so sure about rural,[br]traditional areas,

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where I'm guessing[br]women can't talk to strange men.

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It's important to keep talking about this,[br]in light of Lara Logan.

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She was the CBS News correspondent

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who was brutally sexually assaulted[br]in Egypt's Tahrir Square,

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right after this photo was taken.

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Almost immediately, pundits weighed in,

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blaming her and saying things like,

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"You know, maybe women shouldn't[br]be sent to cover those stories."

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I never heard anyone say this[br]about Anderson Cooper and his crew,

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who were attacked covering the same story.

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One way to get more women into leadership

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is to have other women mentor them.

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One of my board members is an editor[br]at a major global media company,

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but she never thought[br]about this as a career path,

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until she met female role models at JAWS.

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But this is not just a job[br]for super-journalists

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or my organization.

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You all have a stake[br]in a strong, vibrant media.

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Analyze your news.

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And speak up when there are gaps[br]missing in coverage,

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like people at The New York Times did.

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Suggest female sources[br]to reporters and editors.

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Remember -- a complete picture of reality[br]may depend upon it.

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And I'll leave you with a video clip

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that I first saw in [1987][br]when I was a student in London.

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It's for The Guardian newspaper.

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It's actually long before I ever thought[br]about becoming a journalist,

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but I was very interested[br]in how we learn to perceive our world.

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Narrator: An event seen from one[br]point of view gives one impression.

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Seen from another point of view,

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it gives quite a different impression.

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But it's only when you get[br]the whole picture,

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you can fully understand what's going on.

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[The Guardian]

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Megan Kamerick: I think you'll all agree

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that we'd be better off[br]if we all had the whole picture.