CJR | Politico
Politico’s Ginger Gibson and Dylan Byers take the glass half-full approach on the number of women covering the campaigns:
Nowhere is the female presence more palpable than on Newt Gingrich’s press bus, where all five TV networks’ embeds, the AP, Washington Post and POLITICO reporters are female – a new reality that hasn’t been missed by Gingrich.
“As I look here I sense the beginning of a women’s conspiracy, because just look at this group,” Gingrich said … “My entire life is ‘The View’ – surrounded by women.”
CJR’s Meryl Gordon notes that just a quarter of the credentialed press at Saturday’s GOP debate were women. She wonders whether one reason is that women don’t want to be away from their families for weeks on end.
Just ask the question and you get heated answers. “I don’t believe that for a second,” says [Melinda] Henneberger. “When I was at the Times, people were killing each other to get on the road. It’s not reporters self-selecting out. People love it. It’s a great job.” Yet Seema Mehta, of the Los Angeles Times, says she and her friends do worry about their futures. “We talk about it all the time,” she says. “We’re married and we don’t have children yet. We can do it now. But once you reach a certain age and have kids, it’s hard to travel.”
