NPR asks, 'Where are the women -- at NPR?'

“When it comes to female voices from outside NPR, the network is not as diverse on air as it would like to think. NPR needs to try harder to find more female sources and commentators.”

Those words come from a piece by National Public Radio ombudsman Alicia Shepard (and highlighted today by Poynter’s Mallary Jean Tenore), who also points out that, to the network’s credit, that NPR ”has been an industry leader with female correspondents and hosts. Three out of the five hosts of its biggest shows — Morning Edition and All Things Considered — are women. The CEO and the head of the news department are women, as are many other top executives throughout the company.”

The study conducted by Shepard and two NPR interns came up with a number of interesting statistics and graphs, which I encourage you to check out (one graph can be found below). And all that at a news organization which is doing a better job in terms of gender balance than perhaps any other national organization.

The article manages to demonstrate the value of both NPR and of ombudmen, which far too few news organizations are have the courage to employ–part of the reason that the media have such low credibility ratings.

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