The National Journal Group has been generating a lot of buzz lately with big-name hires like Major Garrett, Matt Cooper, Marc Ambinder and Michael Hirsh.
The latest addition to the team is Beth Reinhard, who’s leaving her job at The Miami Herald to become chief political correspondent.
It’s nice to see National Journal look outside the Beltway, as it has a couple of other times as it staffs up for a relaunch next month. And it’s nice to see another woman make the cut.
But here’s the rub: even with Reinhard, a whopping majority of those buzz-generating new names belong to men.
Since June, when the Atlantic Media Group hired Ron Fournier, the AP’s Washington bureau chief, to be editor in chief of the National Journal Group, I count just four women among 20 high-profile hires. Let’s see—quick back of the envelope calculation here. That looks like 20 percent to me. Not good.
In addition to Reinhard, they’ve hired Coral Davenport, who will cover energy and the environment (she came from Politico); Susan Davis, on the Congress beat (ex-WSJ); and Fawn Johnson (formerly of Dow Jones Newswire/WSJ), to do general assignment.
Now, don’t worry. I’m not pulling a Jezebel and declaring National Journal “a boys’ club where women’s contributions are often ignored and dismissed.” Definitely not. (And, for those who haven’t been following along, that was a reference to The Daily Show, not National Journal.)
But lots of Washington journalism eyes are on National Journal, as Fournier builds a unified newsroom (including NationalJournal.com, National Journal magazine, CongressDaily, The Hotline, and the Almanac of American Politics) and prepares to do battle with Politico.
And it’s not just about fairness, though that’s probably enough. A wide range of views and perspectives is the lifeblood of a news organization and has a huge impact on how a story is reported.
National Journal types keep talking about their “nationwide talent search,” and they’ve taken the art of the fawning job announcement to new levels of ridiculousness. Check out this beauty, when political director Ron Brownstein was given the additional role of editorial director:
“Ron Brownstein is smarter than the human species was meant to be,” said David Bradley, owner and chairman of the Atlantic Media Company. “The power of his mind - an extraordinary analytic skill - is simply in a class by itself. The bet here is that pairing Ron Brownstein with Ron Fournier (faster than the human species) will create incomparable journalism for the nation’s capital. What’s better than that?”
Taylor West, communications director for National Journal Group, didn’t dispute my count of high-profile men and women that have been hired recently.
“I don’t think you’re missing specific hires,” she told me. “I don’t think we have the full picture fleshed out yet.”
She also pointed to a few other stats to help put recent National Journal changes in context.
Of about 45 new hires in the newsroom, about 20 have been women, West said, adding that right now, women hold 27 of the 90 writing, reporting, and editing jobs in the unified newsroom, with several slots still to be filled.
In an email, West wrote:
Once the newsroom is fully staffed out, we’re expecting approximately half of the most senior editing positions to be held by women.
Then she added this part, which I’ll let speak for itself:
Also, I’m not sure if you’re interested in the business side of National Journal Group, but it underwent a pretty big transformation recently as well and is a little more fully fleshed out at this point than the newsroom. On the new NJG leadership team, women head up the sales & marketing, events, audience development, finance, communications, and H.R. divisions.
Events.
In any case, while it’s distressing that just 20 percent of those big name hires were women, the total picture is a bit better, with women making up nearly one-third of the whole NJ newsroom, and about 45 percent of total new hires (though that also underscores the disparity in the big-name hires).
All well and good. I'm just hoping that they produce some great journalism, as Brownstein is capable of doing. Fournier, I don't have as much faith, but he can sure do it in quantity. If they can take Politico down a few notches, or shame them into refudiating their hackery, then more power to them.
#1 Posted by James, CJR on Wed 8 Sep 2010 at 07:02 PM
Thank you, Holly, for writing what women in Washington journalism have recognized as the organization of a second "boys club" to compete with the one at Politico which also filled the top slots with men before finding a few women to help out. You might also take a look at the current Time magazine staff.
#2 Posted by Sara Fritz, CJR on Thu 9 Sep 2010 at 04:50 PM
What did you mean by the one word sentence "Events" If this was a snarky comment, suggesting that this is a "women's ghetto" type position that is the kind of old line feminist thinking that I think has no place. All positions can be important to an organization. And the fact the so many other formerly male dominated management held positions are held by women is, I think, worthy of kudos to NJ.
#3 Posted by Leslie Sewell, CJR on Sat 11 Sep 2010 at 12:47 PM