Carolyn Byerly, Associate Professor | USA

Teela Hammell: What led you to your career?

CB: If you mean my academic career, I was getting to a certain point in my late 30s and feeling intellectually hungry, like I wanted to know so much more about the things that I loved and/or that troubled me. I'd had a short journalism and PR career (6 yrs) and another short career in government PR (3 yrs), and that was followed by a number of years (6 yrs) as a feminist activist in the anti-violence movement. These events had left me with a strong desire to be part of an intellectual process again. That process was happening on the university campus, I found a context within which to bring my political, my personal and my intellectual lives together through the direction of my own scholarship. A beautiful moment that was.

TH: What types of media do you use in your work?

CB: I produce books, book chapters, journal articles and occasional blog postings. In the classroom, I use power point.

TH: How has online journalism played a role in your career?

CB: It's helped me understand the future of the profession in new ways, and it has given me and other researchers ready access to both print and electronic news for use as data. But I haven't practiced or even taught journalism for quite a while, so my career is not affected in those ways.

TH: Have you experienced any gender bias(es) in your career?

CB: YES! Over the years, I experienced sexual harassment from editors and other journalists, and one editor at a news organization in the 1970s refused to even let me leave a job application because he said they preferred to hire men. In the academy, I have had the same problems other females have had -- we are still trapped mostly in the lower and middle faculty ranks. Men outnumber us in higher ranks and they make much more money than we do.

TH: How have international experiences impacted your career?

CB: Growing up with an Army dad, I thought moving around and encountering new cultures was normal. It still seems normal to me, and I have made travel a part of my personal and scholarly life.

TH: What do you think are differences in journalism between South Africa and the United States?

CB: I'm not really qualified to answer this. I can say a bit about feminist media activism in both places, though, since I'm acquainted with that through my academic and activist work. Women in both nations have identified media sexism as something to address through sustained campaigns to expand news about women, to move more women into the profession, and to address newsroom policies on gender. Such activism in the USA began in the 1970s and today is more diffuse in its agenda and leadership; in South Africa, it began in the 1990s and today is well mobilized and going strong through the leadership of gender links.

TH: What are the best and worst things about being a woman in communications/journalism?

CB: I would say the opportunity to help expand the ways in which the profession understands, covers, and includes women news professionals.

TH: You have experience working with the feminist movement in South Africa and India, can you say a little bit about those movements and why it was so inspiring to you?

CB: Women in both of those nations are incredibly energetic, focused, determined and smart in the strategies they undertake. Their cultural contexts are quite different but in many ways feminist movements have similarities. In both nations, the present generations of activist women typically have had families deeply involved in their nations' contemporary national independence movements. Families tended to be privileged but radical in their politics, passing the notion of struggle onto the girls (now the women leading women's rights work). I have not spent much time in either nation but the time I have had in each was with feminists engaged in media activism, so I saw that aspect of feminism up close and personal. Inspiring!!

TH: Out of all of the countries you've visited or worked in, which one is your favorite and why?

CB: Hmmmm. . . . this is a tough one!

TH: You are a big supporter of diversity both in the newsroom and in general; why do you believe diversity is so important?

CB: It's important because each person matters, and yet not everyone has the same privileges or access -- those with more access and privilege have a responsibility to those with less. My generation grew up under segregation -- it affected all of us, and it was wrong. My generation also knew legal discrimination against women more profoundly and blatantly than we experience it today. It takes lifelong commitment to eradicate these and bring justice and freedom to all of us. But in addition, I just find the world and the workplace so much more interesting when there is a mix of people, thinking, and experiences. Don't you? I like working alongside and becoming colleagues with people who are not like me.

TH: What is the most difficult obstacle you've faced in your professional life, and where did you find the strength to overcome whatever it was?

CB: Losing tenure in 2000 at Ithaca College was devastating because it was an unjust process and there was no real way to redress it. I thought my academiclife might be over, at least in the way I'd wanted to pursue it. But I was wrong about that, and I learned the real meaning of resilience in the couple of years to  follow. Basically, I have faith in possibility. I was once described as having the tenacity of a bulldog -- I think that might be right. Life has actually been just fine, career was temporarily derailed but not demolished, and I've found a great university where I am MUCH better situated to work at things that are meaningful to me. I take to heart the old Chinese proverb "Some doors close but others open," because it describes so many instances when I have heard one door slam just before the light shines from another.

TH: If you had to choose one country you're really interested in visiting  but haven't gotten to yet, what one would it be?

CB: Iceland -- I want to experience a nation where women and women's culture are dominant.

TH: Do you currently have a partner or children? If not do you think your career in journalism has been a determinant in this?

CB: I have a great partner of 25+ years but no children. I'm among a sizable population of women who did not plan or want to have children. I've enjoyed being "auntie" to some of my friends' kids, and I feel a part of next generations through my teaching.

TH: Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

CB: Possibly returning to some of my earlier work that feels unfinished (e.g., the boxes of data that didn't get written up from one study or another). I also hope to remain connected to the media policy work (as regards women and racial minorities) that have engaged me these last few years -- it's going to be a long-term struggle to get race and gender conscious communications policy in the USA.

TH: How important do you think it is to travel and experience different cultures and aspects of this world?

CB: Absolutely essential -- travel opens windows of understanding, it challenges our assumptions about the way people and places "are," and it's incredibly interesting. Learning languages is also important.

TH: Do you have any advice for aspiring journalists?

CB: Read a lot -- both fiction & nonfiction. Get involved in meaningful activities with people quite different from yourself. Travel, both alone and with others. Write every day. Avoid people who are cynical. Believe in what you do and do it well.

Interviewee: Carolyn Byerly

Carolyn Byerly was born in 1945 in Greenville, Alabama. Growing up in a military family, Byerly had the privilege of experiencing an array of cultures as her family bounced from place to place. She remained in Colorado long enough to complete both high school and college before embarking on a career in journalism and public relations. She continued in this field for almost ten years until diving into feminist activism in the anti-violence movement. Byerly was so inspired by her work within the movement that she desired to become part of an intellectual process again, a process which was happening on university campuses all around the United States. Realizing this, she joined the world of academia which allowed her to bring her political, personal, and intellectual lives together through the direction of her own scholarship. After more than 20 years in academia Byerly is continuing her life's work at Howard University as an associate professor faculty member on the Communication and Media Studies Graduate Program. Her research focuses on the relationship between social movements and media in U.S. and international contexts, with respect to gender, race, nationality, culture, sexual orientation and other variables. Her recent work examines media activism in 20 nations, the role of alternative media in the global peace movement; and gender and media concentration. A widely published author, her most recent work is Women and Media: A Critical Introduction and Women and Media: International Perspectives, coauthored with Karen Ross. Byerly has a partner of over 25 years and in her free time she enjoys studying languages, reading, going to films, and doing yoga.

Interviewer: Teela Hammell

Teela Hammell, 22, a native of Lansing, Iowa, is double majoring in journalism and mass communication and international studies with a minor in psychology at The University of Iowa. She recently finished an internship at The WiderNet Project, a non-profit organization that works to improve digital communication in developing countries. Following her internship, Hammell spent a semester studying abroad in Spain and also explored several countries in Europe, as well as Morocco, where she lived with a host family. Here, she became especially interested in women's roles in international media and is presently eager to explore this topic more in her Gender and Mass Media course. Additionally, Hammell has traveled to the Dominican Republic as an International Student Volunteer, where she contributed to a community development project aimed at improving the education system. Currently, Hammell is working as a research assistant at The University of Iowa's Center for Marital and Family Studies. In the future, she plans on continuing in the field of counseling psychology as a family and marriage therapist. Hammell has two younger sisters, and a younger brother. In her free time she enjoys reading, traveling, writing, volunteering, mentoring and laughing.