In Hillary We Distrust? By Jennifer L. Pozner [View all]

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/in-hillary-we-distrust-jennifer-l-pozner-interviews-joanne-bamberger-veronica-i-arreola-nancy-giles-and-sally-kohn/

An excellent article with interviews of JOANNE C. BAMBERGER, NANCY GILES, SALLY KOHN, and VERONICA I. ARREOLA

Please go to link to read the whole thing, not just the little snippet here...........

As a media critic, I’ve written, spoken about, and done media literacy education on gendered double standards in coverage of female politicians, so I was glad that Love Her, Love Her Not repeatedly addressed how media colored perceptions of Clinton from the 1990s through her 2008 presidential run. How did these journalistic biases shape voters’ ideas about Clinton, Trump, and the concept of leadership itself? And if you were suddenly editor-in-chief of The New York Times or CNN’s managing director, what would you change about coverage of electoral politics, including but not limited to representation of women leaders?


KOHN: Of course this election had everything to do with gender, not just in how Hillary was seen and scrutinized, but perhaps even more so in how Trump was not. It’s hard to imagine a woman candidate with no experience, bad hair, and a weight problem getting away with one-10th of the crap he spewed on the regular. His basic pitch to voters was pure machismo; he even bragged about his testosterone levels in his medical report and his penis size during a debate. So much needs to be dissected more broadly.

But on gender specifically, part of the problem is that we have a national framework fed by a media industry that understands sexism as only something explicit and egregious — the male boss patting the female secretary on the ass and telling her if she wants a raise she has to show more cleavage. Our common cultural understanding of sexism doesn’t get much more nuanced than that. As long as Trump or voters weren’t saying, “Hillary isn’t qualified to be president because she’s a woman,” it was hard for all of us — including the media — to unpack more subtle forms of sexism.

BAMBERGER: I think “media coverage” is very different from actual journalism, which was sorely missing during Election 2016. Media coverage has become about ratings and money; the stories aired 24/7 are those that bring in viewers. The Washington Post addressed CNN’s financial windfall since Jeff Zucker took over and turned the network into an entertainment destination. Cable news outlets covered many more Trump rallies and events live than Hillary’s. The more people saw Trump delivering speeches — even when his comments were racist, anti-immigrant, et cetera — the more he seemed to look like a leader.

If I were to take over CNN or The New York Times, I would immediately address the question of false equivalencies — the idea that for something to be balanced, one must always have a voice from two sides of an issue, even if one side is demonstrably lying.


much more at the link