Vol. 54, No. 1 Winter 2026
Thumbnail summaries of this issue’s major articles:
Women Journalists Resist White House Rancor
In December 2025, the International Women’s Media Foundation took the unprecedented step of rebuking the U.S. president regarding his behavior toward women in the White House press corps. The IWMF issued a strong statement that called out his numerous offensive, belittling comments, warning of serious harm that can follow this type of speech.
“These attacks are attempts to normalize the degradation of the press, diminishing the role of journalists and press freedom as the fourth estate of U.S. democracy. They also serve as a diversion to prevent further questioning and shut down scrutiny on topics of national importance or those requiring accountability,” the IWMF statement said.
Also: While on the air Dec. 8, MS-NOW anchor Nicolle Wallace expressed frustration with other journalists for failing to come to the defense of their female colleagues during Trump’s withering diatribes. “They should go home tonight and think about whether their sisters or their daughters or their moms or their sons or their husbands or their fathers think that there’s something else they should do the next time he calls a female journalist obnoxious, terrible, stupid, nasty, stupid, ugly, terrible, insubordinate or piggy.”
Teens Are Turned Off by the News, Say It’s Biased, Boring and Bad
The News Literacy Project, the nonpartisan education nonprofit that works with teachers, school districts, states, libraries and after-school clubs to ensure students in all 50 states receive news literacy instruction before they graduate from high school, has news for us. And it’s not good.
NLP conducted a wide-ranging attitudinal survey of U.S. teens in 2024 to gauge their knowledge about and confidence in news media. A year later, NLP followed up with a subset of those teens to probe further. They pronounced the news media unsatisfactory and often, untrustworthy. NLP reports this, and the alarming implications, in its latest report on teens, “Biased, Boring and Bad.”
Half the World, A Quarter of the News: Women Just 26% of Broadcast, Radio and Print Worldwide
Thirty years after governments pledged transformative change for women through the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, a new global study finds women remain far from central to the world’s news. Women make up half of the global population, yet they are just a quarter of those who are seen or heard in the news. This statistic has barely changed in the last 15 years, with a mere nine-point change in 30 years.
This comes from the latest edition of the Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP), produced by the international communication rights organization WACC and supported by UN Women’s ACT to End Violence against Women program, is the largest and longest-running research study on gender representation in the media.
The University of Alabama Ends Publication of Magazines for Black, Female Students
The University of Alabama in December 2025 suspended the publication of two student-run magazines — one primarily focused on Black students and another on women’s issues — citing recent federal guidance against diversity, equity and inclusion programs on college campuses. The Associated Press reported that the decision to shutter the magazines – Alice and Nineteen Fifty-Six — appears based on the fact that the publications had primary target audiences, although neither magazine limited who could work on staff. An alumni organization has stepped up to try to restart publication.
“Complete Reversal of Any Progress,” Says Annenberg Study of Female Film Directors
The Annenberg Inclusion Initiative at the University of Southern California released its latest study of Gender and Race/Ethnicity Across the 1,900 Top Films from 2007 to 2025 in December 2025. It found that The falloff in participation by female directors has been steep.
The percentage and number of women working as directors in 2025 (8.1%, n=9) was significantly lower than the percentage and number of women working as directors in 2024 (13.4%, n=15). Further, 2025 was practically the same as 2008 – 17 years ago. These findings represent a complete reversal of any progress that was achieved behind the camera over the last few years.
Research in Depth: Media Use and Attitudes Toward Women as Leaders by Mark Tremayne, Dustin Harp and Ariana Hernandez
Research in Depth: Women’s Sports as Local News by Dunja Antunovic, Monica Crawford, Kimberly Soltis and Ariel Yang
Commentary: Secretive Syllabus Reviews Threaten Academic Freedom by Tracy Everbach
Plus News Briefs!