Selected Journalism News

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June 6, 2008:  "[A]fter so many decades of the feminist movement, why are women at the helm scarce? A look at the media sector may provide some answers," writes Miren Gutierrez, editor in chief of IPS (Inter Press Service in her article "WOMEN--MEDIA: Conspicuous By Their Absence."

The article reports on a 2007 study, "The Gender of Journalism," authored by researcher Monika Djerf-Pierre, and previously noted in Michael Schudson & Danielle Haas' article "One of the Guys," published in the Columbia Journalism Review. These pieces offer still more evidence of the problem E.J. Graff noted in "Do Women Count?" and the reasoning behind the Schuster Institute's Gender & Justice Project:  when women are disproportionately missing from newsrooms or from the news, the news is inaccurate and biased.

February 19, 2008: We're proud of what Jeffrey Birnbaum had to say in The Washington Post about Common Cause Magazine, which Schuster Institute Founding Director Florence Graves launched and edited: 

"...Common Cause has a distinguished history in publishing. From 1980 to 1996, it housed a well-regarded magazine called, appropriately enough, Common Cause magazine. It was a deeply researched, finger-in-your-eye sort of periodical that often did investigations about such matters as campaign finance and military contracting.

The magazine won more than two dozen journalism awards, including five from Investigative Reporters and Editors, as well as a National Magazine Award for General Excellence. Its stories prompted more than a few congressional investigations."

December 5, 2007: "Global Investigative Journalism: Strategies for Support" is a report commissioned by the Center for International Media Assistance at the National Endowment for Democracy, assessing strengths and weaknesses in the field. Based on author David Kaplan's rigorous study of investigative reporting organizations around the globe, we can see that The Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism (noted on pages 19 and 34) is the first and only independent reporting center based at a university in the world.

November 2007: "Women and News" is chockful of facts and analyses about women, politics, and the business of news. Why are women disproportionately absent from the news, even when they have equal expertise or positions of power? Does the gender gap within the news business and among news sources explain the gender gap among the news audience? Why are women a larger proportion of the NPR audience than of other news outlets? Shauna Shamas and Marion Just prepared this summary of the research on these questions (and more) to date for the November 2007 conference on "Women and News," convened by the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy, at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.

Don't miss this important study: "Courageous and independent watchdog reporting is on the wane," writes Charles Lewis in his important Shorenstein Center report, The Growing Importance of Nonprofit Journalism. Lewis, President of The Fund for Independence in Journalism and founder of the Center for Public Integrity, praises Florence Graves' founding of the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism. He writes, "Everyone who knows or knows of Graves knew to keep watching, for good reason. She founded and edited Common Cause Magazine .... the best investigative reporting magazine in the nation."

Don't miss this important study: Whither journalism? As newspapers and news broadcasters face shrinking profits, shrinking audiences, lost credibility, competition from new media, and so much more, how can democracy's watchdog keep fulfilling its crucial function? Those are among the questions veteran journalist Geneva Overholser raises in her paper "On Behalf of Journalism: A Manifesto for Change," a project of the Annenberg Foundation. Among her answers: the new nonprofit journalism could be key to meeting democracy's needs.

July 23, 2007: "Professor Garrett’s study strongly suggests, then, that there are thousands of people serving long sentences for crimes they did not commit but who have no hope that DNA can clear them," writes Adam Liptak in The New York Times, in an article titled Study of Wrongful Convictions Raises Questions Beyond DNA ($$). Liptak is referring to a new study by Brandon L. Garrett, a University of Virginia law professor, who has reviewed DNA exonerations to see what lessons the justice system should be learning about how people are mistakenly sent to jail.

“DNA testing is available in fewer than 10 percent of violent crimes," says Peter Neufeld, of the Cardozo Law School's Innocence Project, in the article. And yet the mistakes that lead to wrongful imprisonment--witness misidentification, faulty forensics, false confessions--are all present in non-DNA cases as well.

Professor Garrett's study, "Judging Innocence," is forthcoming fromi the Columbia Law Review.

October 23, 2006: Will news organizations continue to do investigative reporting ... or will this "first line of defense against public corruption" fall prey to the corporate bottom line? For more, read media columnist Howard Kurtz's Washington Post article here.

October 18, 2006: "Media Women at a Standstill?" In Women's E-News, Sheila Gibbons summarizes the bad news for women's bylines: "Former Glamour deputy editor Ruth Davis Konigsberg found that, on average, women write one article for every three by men in the Atlantic, Harper's, the New York Times Magazine, the New Yorker and Vanity Fair. Alternet's Ann Friedman found that the ratio of male to female contributing writers for progressive magazines was an appalling 30:5 at the Washington Monthly, 26:4 at The Nation and 21:12 at The American Prospect, to name several."

October 16, 2006: "Great journalism, great books, and great newspapers depend on each other," writes Peter Osnos, Senior Fellow for Media at the Century Foundation. The point: insight and wisdom about urgent public issues require a major and long-term investment in investigative reporting. Publishers can "pay advances to the authors, but they do not give them the training, credibility, and access that their publications do." Read more here.

October 12, 2006: Katharine Q. Seelye reports in The New York Times that "The Los Angeles Times is looking to chart its future by using its own reporters and editors, who rank among the best investigators in the business. The Times is dedicating three investigative reporters and half a dozen editors to find ideas, at home and abroad, for re-engaging the reader, both in print and online." Read the rest here.

Recent Institute
Publications

Do Women Count?, by E.J. Graff, Institute Senior Researcher, Brandeis Magazine, Spring '08.

DO WOMEN COUNT? In the news media, the answer is: not as much as men. Women are severely under-represented, whether as people quoted in news stories ... as subjects of the news ... as experts or talking heads ... or as news directors or opinion writers.

"Why is this important?" Graff writes. "Because the news purports to be objective... And when the news is being written by men about men, a significant part of reality is missing from view." Read a version of the article with links to its sources here. And be sure to let us know what you think.

Watchdog Reporting:
Exploring Its Myth, by Florence George Graves, Institute Founding Director, Nieman Reports, Spring 2008.

"THE MYTH OF JOURNALISTS doggedly uncovering all the facts is both important--and dangerous. Here's the danger: Many Americans naively believe that investigative reporters are urgently ferreting out all waste, fraud, and abuse of power in the public interest.... "

Think there's adequate reporting on corporations and government agencies? Think again--and read this article. Then click here for an example of how much scandalous public behavior is getting ignored.

First Things First, by Florence George Graves, Institute Founding Director, and Hadar Sayfan '07, Institute research assistant, Boston Sunday Globe IDEAS section, June 24, 2007.

Housing First, a radical new approach to ending chronic homelessness, is gaining ground in Boston.

AT THE LATIN ACADEMY, a majestic former school built in 1900 near Dorchester's Codman Square, Joe Jeannotte is participating in a social experiment.... [more]

NOTE: This article won the 2008 Cushing Niles Dolbeare Media Award! 

Click here and here for letters to the editor, here for blog and website mentions of this article, and here for events that may have been triggered by the article. And check here for resources to learn more about the topic.

Is Your Daughter Safe at Work?, by E.J. Graff, Institute Senior Researcher, Good Housekeeping, June 2007.EVERY YEAR, THOUSANDS of teenage girls are sexually harassed, even assaulted, at work. Many parents worrry about the threat of sexual predators on the Internet. But teens are far more likely to encounter a predator on the job.

"For Maureen, the worst part was that Dan kept scheduling her to work at night—in the box office, often alone with him. There, he'd make sexually provocative remarks..." [more]

Be sure to check back here at our website for our next article--about the legal and policy implications of this problem.

A Practical Present for Mom, by E.J. Graff, Institute Senior Researcher, The Boston Sunday Globe, May 13, 2007.

IT'S MOTHER'S DAY, the day we celebrate the sacrifices involved in being a female parent. Meanwhile, for the rest of the year, our education policies undermine mothers, especially those who work.... Why can't the schoolday match the workday? Why can't the United States invest in early childhood education? [more]

Mother Superior, On the Media. WNYC/NPR. Host Bob Garfield interviews Institute Senior Researcher E.J. Graff.

FOR DECADES, A CERTAIN story line has cropped up again and again in the media: women are opting-out of the workforce to raise their children, and working moms resent it. But when researcher E.J. Graff looked at the “mommy-wars” stats, she found scant evidence of a real battle. Listen. Broadcast to more than 200 stations nationwide the week of May 11, 2007.

Here, look at the first, second, third, and fourth articles in a follow-up series at Nieman Watchdog, suggesting what editors and reporters could cover instead.

The Mommy War Machine, by E.J. Graff, Institute Senior Researcher, Sunday Washington Post Outlook section, April 29, 2007.

THE BALLYHOOED MOMMY WARS exist mainly in the minds -- and the marketing machines -- of the media and publishing industry, which have been churning out mom vs. mom news flashes since, believe it or not, the 1950s. [more]

Reprinted in the San Jose Mercury News, The China Post, and The Canton (Ohio) Repository.

The Schuster Institute has received many responses to "The Mommy War Machine," and to E.J. Graff's April 30, 2007 appearance on NPR's show Talk of the Nation, where she discussed her research. Click here to listen. Click here for a sampling of emails from readers and listeners, and here for blog mentions. Check back for more emails and blog mentions--they keep coming in!

The Opt-Out Myth, by E.J. Graff, Institute Senior Researcher, Columbia Journalism Review, March/April 2007.

MOST MOMS NEED TO WORK to make ends meet. So why do the news media focus relentlessly on the elite few who don’t?

Read the whole article here, including links to supporting research. Find relevant resources on working families' issues.

What They're Saying: "Any piece about women grappling with the choice to abandon careers for children has to make clear how rare it is to have that option. Nobody's done that better lately than E.J. Graff in the 'Columbia Journalism Review' wrote Joan Walsh, Salon.com's editor-in-chief, on April 3, 2007. Read what else they're saying here.

Striking back, by E.J. Graff, Institute Senior Researcher, The Boston Globe, September 3, 2006.Women can't drive forklifts, Sheila White's coworkers at Burlington Northern told her. (Photo: Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University)

HONORING AMERICAN WORKERS long ago lost out to grilling hamburgers as the activity of choice on Labor Day. But, for those inclined to spend some of the holiday weekend considering the state of American labor, the Supreme Court has this year offered a decision that might be cause for celebration. In June, the court issued a 9-to-0 ruling in Burlington Northern v. Sheila White. In theory, the decision will make it easier to sue in federal court for workplace ``retaliation" -- actions taken against employees who complain they've been discriminated against.... [more]

Note: E.J. Graff covered the oral argument in Burlington Northern v. Sheila White briefly for The American Prospect Online. Click here for a more detailed report on the Justices' questions during oral argument.

Till hardships do all of us part, by E.J. Graff, Institute Senior Researcher, The Boston Globe, July 25, 2006.

APPARENTLY THE 20-year mark is the Heartbreak Hill of marriage. Here at the end of my 40s, I'm seeing breakups all over my cohort. Many longtime couples (straight, lesbian, gay) are calling it quits, admitting with grief that they cannot fulfill their earnest pledges to love and care for each other lifelong. Given the intimate damage in their daily lives, they're acknowledging that -- if they're to salvage any kindness for themselves and each other (and their children) -- all that's left is the exit. [more]

Boeing Parts and Rules Bent, Whistle-Blowers Say,
by Florence Graves and Sara Kehaulani Goo, Washington Post, April 17, 2006, p. A1

Jeannine Prewitt knew there was a problem when the holes wouldn't line up.

On a Boeing Co. assembly line in Kansas in 2000, Prewitt saw workers drilling extra holes in the long aluminum ribs that make up the skeleton of a jetliner's fuselage. That was the only way the workers could attach the pieces, because some of their pre-drilled holes didn't match those on the airframe.... Prewitt was a parts buyer, the third generation of her family to work at the sprawling Boeing factory on the outskirts of Wichita. She believed that pieces going into one of the world's most advanced and popular airliners, the Boeing 737, should fit like a glove....[more]

Click here for more documents and information relevant to this investigation, conducted by the Institute in collaboration with the Washington Post.

Fighting for Fair Treatment, E.J. Graff, Institute Senior Researcher, The American Prospect Online, April 27, 2006.

For the big Supreme Court cases -- about abortion, say, or gay rights -- it’s a struggle for ordinary reporters (those who aren’t the dedicated Supreme Court press) with one-day passes to get into the press gallery. After a maze of security, and if you get in at all, you’re herded into the long second-tier press gallery, hidden behind large marble pillars, unable to see the justices at all.

Getting into the oral argument for Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway Co. v. Sheila White, Burlington Northern vs. Santa Fe Railway Co. v. Sheila White, though, was easy. A quick zip through the metal detector, a stop at the press office, no ID needed, and the few of us who cared about the case were waved up into the press gallery casually, like ordinary visitors. Burlington Northern v. White isn’t on anyone’s radar -- even though the decision in this case will affect hundreds of thousands of working people’s daily lives on the job. Burlington offers the court a chance, once again, to decide what Congress really meant when its 1964 Civil Rights Act Title VII, section 703, declared it “an unlawful employment practice for an employer ... to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.” In Burlington, the question was about section 704 of Title VII, in which Congress said it was also illegal for an employer to retaliate -- to “discriminate against” -- anyone who had brought a discrimination charge or testified on behalf of someone else’s charge. Otherwise, simply by bringing a discrimination charge, you could get fired. [more]

The Skinny Pink Paycheck Syndrome, E.J. Graff, Institute Senior Researcher, Los Angeles Times, Sunday, Feburary 12, 2006.

THE NEW YORK TIMES recently profiled San Diego's Fire Engine Company 22, almost certainly the only allfemale firefighting crew in the United States. It was inspiring to read about four competent, hardworking women happily succeeding in a "man's job."

But Company 22 is the pretty side of an ugly phenomenon. Female firefighters are newsworthy only because they are incredibly rare. And they're rare because flagrant sex discrimination still keeps women out of every job that is overwhelmingly male — truck driver, construction worker, electrician, miner, bond trader, you name it. More than 40 years after passage of the Civil Rights Act and 30 years after major lawsuits tried to crack male-employment monopolies, men still harshly patrol the entrances of too many well-paying jobs. In 2006 — a generation after "second wave" feminism began with "The Feminine Mystique," whose author, Betty Friedan, died Feb. 4 — women don't have a fair shot at earning what men do. [more]

Too Pretty a Picture, E.J. Graff, Institute Senior Researcher, Washington Post, Sunday, November 25, 2005.

I steeled myself as the camera panned slowly over a vast, sprawling mine operation. I'd come to see the new Charlize Theron movie, "North Country," which is supposed to be based on a real story of sexual harassment at the Eveleth Taconite Co., in Minnesota's Iron Range. I was expecting the film to bring alive the hostile environment the women hired there in the 1970s and '80s had endured. If it was at all true to life, the movie could be rough going. But I hoped it would expose at last the persistent and pervasive war zone created by sexual harassment, a war zone that still exists in workplaces across the country to this day. [more]

Institute Events & News

On September 11, 2007, Institute senior researcher E.J. Graff spoke about violence and news coverage related to women on the "Violence in Language, Art and Culture" panel, part of the Chicago Foundation for Women's annual luncheon and symposium. Click here for more information.

Thank you, Dick Lehr!
From June 18, 2007 through January 1, 2008, award-winning investigative reporter, author, and journalism professor Dick Lehr joined the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism at Brandeis University as its “visiting journalist-in-residence.” Lehr acted as a consultant to the Institute’s Justice Brandeis Innocence Project, helping to complete an ongoing investigation into a case of likely wrongful conviction. He was also completing “The Fence,” a book about police brutality in Boston and the “blue wall of silence,” for HarperCollins. Click here for the complete press release.

On Thursday, June 28, 2007, in New York City: Moms Who Work: Myth and Reality. WE HAD A STANDING ROOM ONLY CROWD at this forum on the realities faced by working mothers (and their families) in the U.S. today. Lead panelist was E.J. Graff, Institute senior researcher; moderator was the Hon. Linda Tarr-Whelan, Demos Distinguished Senior Fellow; respondents included Carol Jenkins, President of the Women's Media Center; Lois Backon, Families & Work Institute; Linda Lisi Juergens, Executive Director, National Association of Mothers' Centers.This event was sponsored by Demos, and co-sponsored by the Schuster Institute, Columbia Journalism Review, The Women's Media Center, Families & Work Institute, and the National Association of Mothers Centers. Please click here for an email praising the panel.

On May 9, 2007, USA Today quoted Institute Founding Director Florence George Graves talking about how Brandeis students helped research our Washington Post story on the FAA's failure to investigate suspect Boeing parts. The article discussed programs or classes in which students get hands-on experience in investigative journalism.

On April 24, the Schuster Institute's Justice Brandeis Innocence Project sponsored Righting Wrongful Convictions: A Dialogue Between an Exonoree and His Prosecutor. At 3 p.m., our audience watched the award-winning documentary film "After Innocence," which follows several exonerated men and their fight for freedom.

Then at 4:30 p.m., about fifty people listened to our powerful speakers. Dennis Maher, one of the exonerated men featured in the film, talked with J.W. Carney, the prosecutor who sent Maher to prison--and who, twenty years later, asked for Maher's forgiveness. Also speaking was Bee Baran, who served 21 years for crimes he says he did not commit; his attorney John Swomley; and renowned defense attorney Robert Feldman.

Sponsored by the Schuster Institute's Justice Brandeis Innocence Project. Co-sponsors included the Office of the Dean of Arts and Sciences, Office of the Provost, the Women's Studies Research Center, the International Center for Ethics, Justice, and Public Life, the Black Students’ Organization, Hillel, the Journalism Program, Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, the Student Union, the University Chaplaincy, and WBRS radio.

On April 17, 2007, Institute Senior Researcher E.J. Graff gave a brownbag lunch talk at the Kennedy School's Shorenstein Center on Press, Politics, & Public Policy at Harvard University, called "The Opt-Out Myth: How and Why the Press Keeps Distorting the Facts About Working Mothers."

Elaine and Gerald Schuster give $5 million, rename the Institute

January 2007: Philanthropists Elaine and Gerald Schuster made a gift of $5 million to Brandeis University’s newly named Elaine and Gerald Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism, a first-of-its-kind center committed to in-depth, non-partisan reporting on issues with broad public interest. [more]

"I am honored by the Schusters’ confidence in what we’ve done so far, and inspired by their visionary generosity," said Florence George Graves, Founding Director. "All of us here feel privileged to be able to undertake the kind of journalistic investigations so desperately needed in these times."

What They're Saying: Click here to read coverage of the Schusters' visionary investment in investigative journalism in The Boston Herald, Palm Beach Daily News, Palm Beach Post, Waltham (MA) Daily News Tribune, and in two student newspapers, the Brandeis Hoot and The Justice. Here's what The Boston Globe's Names & Faces column had to say on January 29, 2007:

"The scoop on Brandeis’ new institute: Who says investigative journalism's dead? Not Gerald and Elaine Schuster, who are doing their part for the future of muckraking media. The pair just gave $5 million to Brandeis's new Institute for Investigative Journalism. (Not coincidentally, the first-of-its-kind institute will bear the Boston couple's names.) The new school's fearless leader is none other than Florence Graves, whose stories about the sexual misconduct of Senator Bob Packwood led to his resignation."

New Senior Program Coordinator joins the Institute: April Robb.
January 2007: The Institute is delighted to welcome April Robb, our new senior program coordinator.

Praise from Bill Kovach, Founding Chair of the Committee for Concerned Journalists:
“.... Brandeis University is to be congratulated for creating in its midst the perfect symbol of Justice Brandeis's belief in the role of an aggressive free press." [more] 

What They're Saying:
Click here to read more praise for the Institute and for its nonprofit model of investigative journalism.

On October 5, 2006,"The Investigation Continues: on its second anniversary, the Brandeis Institute for Investigative Journalism keeps digging for the truth," by Marsha MacEachern, was published on the Brandeis University website. Read here about our work. In the article, Brandeis Provost Marty Krauss says that the Institute "embodies the core values of the University--truth telling, social justice, and rigorous research. I'm proud of its work and look forward to seeing this new Institute continue its quest for exposing wrongs that need to be made right."

On Tuesday, October 3, 2006, Institute Senior Researcher E.J. Graff was a panelist on The Moral Center: A Discussion of Values, Politics, and America's Future, sponsored by the Demos Institute, The American Prospect, and the National Voting Rights Rights Institute, and Partners in Public Dialogue. The event was held in Boston's historic Old South Meeting House, and was recorded by WGBH-TV.

On September 11, 2006, Institute Senior Researcher E.J. Graff was one of 11 local thinkers interviewed by the Boston Phoenix about the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 bombings. Her comments include this: "The impulse toward safety through absolutism and idealism is so terrifying and so deep in human nature.... Almost nobody goes and blows up buildings because they think of themselves as evil. They do it out of a belief in good — and good is a terrible thing sometimes, a very dangerous temptation." [more]

Now in Paperback: Getting Even: Why Women Still Don't Get Paid Like Men--And What To Do About It, by Evelyn Murphy with Institute Senior Researcher E.J. Graff.

If you're a woman, over your working lifetime you will lose between $700,000 and $2 million -- simply because of your sex. Is that fair? No. Can it be stopped? Absolutely. Getting Even exposes the discrepancy between what women and men make -- and how it affects us all. It reveals that the wage gap is not going away on its own. And it explains how to close the wage gap -- and, finally, get women even.
Evelyn Murphy, President of WAGE (Women Are Getting Even), is a resident scholar at the Brandeis Women’s Studies Research Center.

Innocence Project gets second $75,000 grant. On August 29, 2006, The Justice, the Brandeis newspaper, covered the renewal of the Institute's grant from the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation, for continuining to build our much-needed Innocence Project.

On June 12 2006,
"Sexual Harassment: Twenty Years After Meritor v. Vinson," The New School, New York City

E.J. Graff, Institute Senior Researcher, moderated a New School panel that she organized on how sexual harassment law affects women today, with a "dream team" of experts and practitioners in the field. More than 40 years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act and almost 20 years after the U.S. Supreme Court declared it illegal, sexual harassment is still common in every job sector in every part of the country. For an archived webcast of the discussion, please tune in here. (Look under "special events.")

Brandeis student research assistants contributed to April Washington Post article

Congratulations to the Institute's outstanding student research assistants: Dave Cutler, Jessica Goldings, Hadas Kroitoru, Rachel Seiler, and Sarah Sullivan.

Each of these students worked on the research for the Institute's collaboration with the Washington Post, "Boeing Parts and Rules Bent, Whistle-Blowers Say," published April 17, 2006, p. A1. Many thanks for all their hard work!

On March 22, 2006,
"What If We're Killing
The Wrong Man?"

Sister Helen Prejean was a little-known Roman Catholic nun from Louisiana in 1993 when her first book, Dead Man Walking, challenged the way we look at the death penalty in America. It became a #1 New York Times bestseller, was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, and inspired the Academy-Award winning movie starring Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn.

Now, in The Death of Innocents, she takes us to the new moral edge of the debate on capital punishment: What if we’re killing the wrong man? [more]

On Saturday, February 18, 2006, Pamela Cytrynbaum, Associate Director of the Brandeis Institute for Investigative Journalism, helped host a showing of the documentary film After Innocence. Ms. Cytrynbaum accompanied Dennis Maher, one of the local exonerees featured in the film, which is now showing here in Waltham, Mass., and around the country. [more]

A Note from
the Founding Director

Journalism is protected by the U.S. Constitution for a single reason: an unfettered news media is essential for a healthy democracy. What you don’t know can hurt you—when it becomes bad medicine, dangerous products, unsafe or unfair working conditions, wrongful convictions, evaporated pensions, or skewed and harmful policies. Without oversight, human beings too often behave badly. When the facts are pursued with ruthless thoroughness, watchdog journalism helps keep American institutions accountable to all. [more]