Frieda Werden, Co-Founder of WINGS: Women's International News Gathering Service | USA

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

FW: Sure, lots.  When I first started in radio I was told that microphones didn't like women's voices!  Occasionally, WINGS worked with male audio engineers who screwed up our stuff; mostly we've worked with women.  Now, of course, reporters tend to do our own engineering.  When I was at NPR, I had a lot of arguments with media people and also with scholars who were helping plan projects about the lack of inclusion of women and the bias against women.  When I applied for a CPB grant for women's news in 1987, comments came back like "this is an idea whose time has passed."  One time I was at an NPR conference and in a session about the show Marketplace, which was premiering.  Someone said to me "a show only about women, that's such a narrow topic."  I replied "Not nearly as narrow as a show only about business!  Women are more than half the population of the world!"  I wonder if that had an effect on Marketplace editorially, because later on, I found they seemed to be the only NPR show that actually had fairly frequent stories about women's issues.  Everyone in public media was and still is incredibly paranoid about appearing to be the slightest bit pro-feminist.  I could go on and on and on about this topic.

AL: How have international experiences impacted your career?

FW: They made my career.  The networks of contacts and reporters.  The perspectives.  The friendships.  The constant surprises. The recognition that my way of thinking is so far from the only way. 

AL: What do you think are differences in journalism between Canada and the United States?

FW: US media regulations allow hate speech. negative stereotyping, and unfettered portrayal of violence, but not the use of profanity before 10 pm or any explicit discussion of sex at any hour.  In Canada, we can talk about sex and use profanity with only the slightest risk of regulatory criticism if used before 9 pm (not huge expensive fines like in the US) but we are specifically forbidden to use hate speech, negative stereotyping, or depictions that incite to or condone violence. At least one station lost its license recently for failing to curb a hate jockey.  If you want to see our portrayal codes, visit www.cbsc.ca . In Canada, journalists fairly often mention that they are atheists; whereas in the US you would lose your job, religion is still very much of a sacred cow.  In the US, Public Radio journalism is still male dominated and usually has a very tense, staccato, almost angry or aggressive kind of feel and also uses a lot of State Department releases very uncritically; in Canada, the state broadcaster has a LOT of really excellent women broadcasters, there is quite a bit of very balanced in-depth coverage of issues and ideas, male as well as female broadcasters actually cover women's issues (though not as much as is needed), there are more call-ins/write-ins from listeners on shows, and the whole tone and pace are more relaxed.  Canadians have a sweeter sense of humour, than Americans, and multi-culturalism and tolerance are high values in this country.   My biggest fear is that right now our very right-wing Prime Minister is negotiating to allow foreign broadcast ownership - and that the American media already coming across the border is corrupting the Canadian public's sensibilities.

AL: If you had to choose one thing in your career you are the most proud of, what would it be?

FW: The broad awareness of international women's issues and experiences I've had the privilege to acquire and share.

AL: Do you have any role models? Who are they and why?

FW: Judy Pasternak and Katherine Davenport, who used to co-produce the international women's news on WBAI radio in New York in the early 1980s and who inspired and urged me to get involved in covering women's news stories.  Isis International in Manila, which has done so much great magazine coverage of women's issues year after year - they are so dedicated and so political.  My mother and father, an engineer/Toastmaster and a musician/music teacher, who are/were very good at explaining things to people and enjoyed watching people learn and develop, participated in organizations and helped them grow and develop, and generally expended themselves quite substantially for the public good.  Lots of others.

                

AL:  Statistics show that it is hard to keep women in higher paying and powerful positions in this profession. Many women resign in order to spend more time with their families. How do you feel about this?  

FW: I think that pay scales should be more even, that credit should be more evenly spread out, and that everyone female and male should be able to take time off for family and human concerns.  That means the cult of personality should not reign supreme. I also think that women resign not just for family reasons but because we are more easily bored by superficiality and repetitiveness, and that if the media were more varied and relevant there would be more women sticking it out.

AL: How do you define a journalist? Do you feel they need to be qualified by means of a higher education or is experience more important? Is it a mix of both?

FW:  I think a journalist is defined by a bent for finding things out realistically and objectively and then communicating them clearly.  A journalist can have a bias - that comes naturally - but still has to have a commitment to being objective and truthful and be willing to let opinions change or go if the facts don't support them (no sweeping information under the rug).  A journalist also has to have a sense of story, what will get and hold an audience's attention, and how to make facts flow for maximum understanding and insight.  A journalist must enjoy her work and aim for a high standard.  I do think some journalism education can be very helpful but that experience is more important, and some of the best journalists have come out of community media training.

AL: What's your favorite thing about coming to work each day? What helps you get up in the morning?

FW: I find my work, both the production and the community radio coordination job, endlessly fascinating.  I am always learning new things, meeting people, having great conversations, seeing people grow and come to new realizations about themselves and others and being proud of their good work.  And I get a huge aesthetic and intellectual pleasure out of making and editing radio pieces.  I love to listen.  And I really appreciate the loving and mutually supportive relationships I've been able to find and develop within the community media community.

AL: Would you like to share any final words of advice for women aspiring toward careers dealing with journalism or communications?

FW: Keep your eye on what the world needs to know in order to grow and improve.  If you love it, it's worth doing.  And don't forget to push the envelope where women's perspectives and issues are concerned -  that's where there's a lot of new ground and a lot of scoops.

Interviewee: Frieda Werden

Frieda Werden, born Linda Catherine Samfield in Austin, Texas, is a writer, journalist and TV and radio producer. She has lived in several states in the US including North Carolina, Michigan, New York, Washington D.C., and San Francisco and moved to Canada in 2002. With a background in women's history and a strong feminist, Werden has been active in the women's movement since 1969 and produced weekly radio programs about women since 1987. She is a sought after public speaker on the topic of women's communication issues and community media. She is the producer and co-founder of the weekly radio series WINGS: Women's International News Gathering Service which debuted on the National Public Radio Satellite, in May of 1986. The pilot edition was produced at Western Public Radio in San Francisco, where she was the Operations Manager at the time and is now in syndication. In 2005, Werden was elected president of the International Association of Women in Radio and Television and has also served on the international Board of Directors of the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC). In June 2006, she received the prestigious inaugural "Lifetime Achievement Award" at the 25th Annual National Community Radio Conference, a project of the Canadian National Campus and Community Radio Association (NCRA). Presently, she coordinates Spoken Word programming at CJSF-FM, a Vancouver, BC campus-community station.

Interviewer: Ashlea Lawrence

Ashlea Lawrence, 21, is currently a junior at the University of Iowa majoring in American studies and communications with a minor in mass communication. She is from Cedar Rapids, IA where she graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School in 2007. Her career interests involve doing something with news and reporting, but laying the groundwork necessary by pursuing a job in office work. She became interested in media in high school as she wrote for her high school newspaper, The Outlook, and learned she enjoyed talking to people as she participated in speech competitions. Lawrence has four years of Spanish experience and took an advanced course on it her last year which she hopes may help with her career goals. She took Gender and Mass Media in order to prepare herself for what she might expect in the field, as well as to study women's relations in journalism. In her free time she loves to practice the piano and cello, and play tennis. She's second youngest of six children; her twin sister being the youngest by one minute. Lawrence is looking forward to seeing how gender affects people in the workplace through an international perspective, specifically in journalism through the OurBlook.com project.