Real Majority, Media Minority: The Costs of Sidelining Women in Reporting (Paperback)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...If only there were a hundred of her." -- Susan Faludi

"...This book confirms what a terrific heterodogmatiser Laura is. Anyone who craves something different from the Authorized version of life, politics and our history should have this book." -- Alexander Cockburn

"An eloquent indictment of the mainstream media's dismissal of women's lives and perspectives." -- Urvashi Vaid

"Funny, angry, fact-filled and brilliant. I wish I had written it myself!" -- Katha Pollitt

"Laura Flanders has arrived, scintillant with wit, intelligence, polemical grace." -- June Jordan

While a few women have become multi-million dollar earners, the perspectives of most women are still sidelined. Author Laura Flanders maintains that this is not just sexism, it's also bad reporting. Real Majority, Media Minority gathers together into one collection almost ten years of Flanders' extraordinary essays and interviews analyzing the structure and habits of commercial news media. In an eloquent argument, Flanders says it's time to go beyond simple "bean counting". What's critical isn't who's telling the story, but how the story's being told. " Real Majority, Media Minority is a very badly needed contribution to journalism and women's studies reading lists. -- Midwest Book Review

Product Description

THE OTHER HALF OF THE STORY. In part thanks to writers and activists like Laura Flanders of FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting), there are now more women working in U.S. news media than ever before. But have more women in the industry produced better coverage of women's rights and so-called "women's issues?" In her first book, Flanders, host of the nationally syndicated radio program "CounterSpin," says not.

While some women have become multi-million dollar earners, the perspectives of most women are still sidelined, Flanders documents. And that's not just sexism, she says--it's bad reporting.

REAL MAJORITY, MEDIA MINORITY gathers together into one collection almost ten years of Flanders's extraordinary essays and interviews analyzing the structure and habits of the commercial news media. In an eloquent argument, she says it's time to go beyond simple "bean counting." "What's critical isn't who's telling the story, but how the story s being told."

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Product Details

• Paperback: 293 pages
• Publisher: Common Courage Press (July 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1567510906
• ISBN-13: 978-1567510904
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,122,278 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful Journalism, March 31, 2001

By	Indienne - See all my reviews

This collection gathers Flanders' reporting on a wide variety of of issues -- reproductive rights and other health issues, sexual violence, global feminism, labor issues, economic issues and much more. As fans of her radio work and her In These Times column know, Flanders is a great reporter, clever, incisive and bristling with facts and information. (She even notes, for example, that despite the title of her book, women are in fact NOT the majority of the world's population, thanks to the practice in India, China and some other countries of female infanticide and the neglect-unto-death of girl children.) You can learn a lot about the conditions of women around the world from this book -- and a lot about writing and reporting too. Definitely one of the best offerings to date from Common Courage Press, and still timely.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Sounds of Silence: Women and White Male Jounalism, February 9, 2003

By	Kenneth R. Kahn (Baltimore, Maryland United States) - See all my reviews

Despite the portrayal of journalists in such 1940s Hollywood films as "Deadline USA" and "Citizen Kane" the place of women both as reporters, subjects, and their impact on the world, has, to my knowledge never been reported.

Now comes author Laura Flanders who does more than carp and complain, she shows the reader, using a series of essays as her vehicle, just how women are marginalized and the impact of such marginalization. To be sure, it makes us all poorer that women are relegated to "women's issues" by a white male hierarchy that dominates and controls the ebb and flow of information to the masses.

In this, the "age of information" the era of the "information superhighway and the internet yet we are, as a people, befret of information. Our news is homogenized, pasteurized and sanitized for your protection. It's as if America is wearing a coast-to-coast-condom where news and information is concerned.

Are Americans as apathetic about Dubya's war in Iraqi? Did not 500,000 Americans assembling in Washington to peacfully tell the government "hell no" to the warmakers plans for the enrichment of the Bush family and its army of fellow traveling contractors and hangers-on?

One has only to ingest a daily diet of pablum passing as "news" via the local TV channel to realize that women don't count in any capacity other than crime victim, welfare mother, or criminal. A women's view about sending her child of to Iraqi for big oil do not appear on the little screen or in the newspaper.

The few women journalists appearing regularly are people like Eleanor Clift who, when asked, stated, "Well, I'm not really a leftist, I just play one on television," or Julianne Malveaux, a conservative who helped ruin WPFW Pacifica radio in Washington, D.C. Newspapers such as the "washington Post" have editorial pages filled by white men with many of the usual opinions.

Laura Flanders has given voice to the voiceless women of the world and shattered the stereotypes that oppress women and, by whose expression, keep the rest of us dull witted and ignorant of the views and feelings of an important and worthwhile part of the population whose situation needs to be taken into account.

"Real Majority" should be read and considered as important and worthwhile reading. The next time one views local or national news, take note of the position of women both as reporters and subjects, see if Laura Flanders is speaking the truth. We know that she is.