When thinking about Katie Couric, many were very excited that the public was getting over male dominated news and coming to new conclusions. Finally we had someone who was going to speak for women in the news, but the media again let us down. In the article from The Women’s Media Center Michele Filgate explained how “CBS spent millions of dollars on a campaign to promote Katie Couric before she took over as the first solo female anchor of a network evening news broadcast.” I think we all wanted to see what the other news had to say about Couric, but what happened was pretty disappointing. Instead of reporting how Couric was as an anchor, Filgate states how some decided to focus on what she was wearing and how her makeup looked. Here is the very first female evening news anchor and that’s what some news decided to talk about? This is where alternative news can come in.
Another instance of women in the news is of course Rachel Maddow. I’m a bit ashamed that I had never seen Rachel Maddow’s show, but after reading about her last week, I had to look her up. I have to admit I spent pretty much an entire night looking at different videos of her on youtube and I think I might be obsessed. Widner talks in her article about how Maddow doubled ratings and “the nation couldn’t get enough of this 6-foot tall dyke who put douchey white men in their place on a regular basis.” Maddow just reminds me of a regular person whom we all know and yet she is super smart and somehow keeps her cool even against some of the most ridiculous people.
Of course twitter and facebook are great, but it’s something I think all of us are familiar with. One alternative news company I found is the Women’s Institute for Freedom of the Press. This organization is founded and run by women for women. They focus on the reaching out to women with their great ideas and knowledge.
Another organization is Women’s Net, which gives funding to different organizations for women that are making a difference. Women’s Net uses blogs and state resources to showcase the different people and organizations out there making a difference.
The media can let us down, sometimes on a daily basis, but alternative news is really a way to get the news in a different way. As women, or those that are conscious of women’s issues, we have the ability to find the news sources that are not bias or discriminating.
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