Welcome to Technology for Publishing’s roundup of news highlighting women’s roles, contributions, and achievements in the evolving media business. This latest installment covers Saudi Princess Reema’s social media campaign to raise breast cancer awareness, boot camp for women board candidates, tributes to journalist and diversity champion Dori Maynard, women who have significantly impacted the media industry this past year, and more.
- Saudi Arabian activist Princess Reema bint Bandar Al Saud and her fundraising organization, Zahra Breast Cancer Association, are taking to social media to promote the group’s 10KSA campaign to increase awareness of breast cancer by bringing 10,000 women together to form a human pink ribbon. With greater reach via social platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, and a newly launched Instagram account, the group is aiming to top a similar movement in 2010 that brought together 3,952 participants, according to an Adweek report. In a keynote address at South by Southwest, Princess Reema, an entrepreneur and CEO of luxury retail company Alfa International, stressed the importance of making breast cancer awareness “a mainstream conversation,” especially in countries where detection too often comes at later stages.
- Bloomberg Business reported that activist, author, and Facebook COO Sheryl Sanberg is teaming up with industry veteran Marc Andreessen on a “boot camp” to teach highly qualified women and minorities how to serve on boards of corporations and start-ups, covering legal obligations, committee duties, and other roles of the position. The idea is to give those candidates who have never served on outside boards the tools they need to take seats and succeed as board members.
- Dori Maynard, a journalist and president of the Maynard Institute, an organization committed to promoting the accurate portrayal of diverse communities in news coverage, died Feb. 24 at the age of 56. The institute said in a Huffington Post article on her life and work, “Maynard advocated tirelessly for the future of the institute and its programs, reminding all that the work of bringing the diverse voices of America into news and public discourse is more vital than ever.” Check out Poynter’s site as well for more tributes to Maynard.
- Journalism.co.uk marked International Women’s Day by highlighting 10 top female journalists and technology innovators. From the new editor in chief of the Guardian to an accomplished data journalist and trainer to an innovative BBC News mobile and new formats editor, the list recognizes women who have made a significant impact in the industry this past year. Many other nominations have been received via Twitter, and those are posted on the site as well.
- Talking Biz News detailed VentureBeat‘s experiment last fall to find more female technology reporters. The tech news site wanted to do more to change the gender ratio of its predominantly male staff, so it developed an online application that uses a simple Google Doc with names and gender removed to evaluate candidates and their writing, explained the site’s editor in chief. The blind test produced an interesting result: While no full-timers were hired as a result, two out of three freelance writers brought on board were women, he said.
- The National Association for Female Executives released its 2015 list of the top 50 companies for executive women. Leading the pack are Abbott, Ernst & Young, General Mills, IBM, and Johnson & Johnson. Results are based on a survey, now in its 17th year, about female representation at all levels.
- San Francisco Chronicle‘s Audrey Cooper sat down with former New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson ahead of the inaugural Lead On networking conference in Santa Clara, California, last month to discuss topics such as pay inequality, Silicon Valley’s view of women, and whether females in managerial roles are held to different standards than men. Other conference notables included Hillary Rodham Clinton and designer Diane Von Furstenburg.
- While sexism in the tech industry has been an ongoing discussion in the media, Business Insider reported that Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer recently told Backchannel‘s Steven Levy that she doesn’t think gender matters in technology. “The moment you play into that, it’s an issue,” she said. “In technology we live at a rare, fast-moving pace. There are probably industries where gender is more of an issue, but our industry is not one where I think that’s relevant.”
- Among those who disagreed with Mayer’s view was Leila Janah, CEO of Sama Group, a nonprofit organization that connects impoverished women to jobs in the technology field. She wrote on LinkedIn, “It disregards a lot of recent data on women in tech and the experience of a huge number of women leaders in the Valley, myself included. And I think it sets us back.”
- Meanwhile, Poynter examined how interim Reddit CEO Ellen Pao’s gender discrimination lawsuit against Silicon Valley VC firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers is an important milestone for the women reporters who have been covering the trial, which is scheduled to wrap up this week. (Note: The judge in the case ruled this past weekend that Pao be allowed to seek punitive damages, which could add tens of millions of dollars to the original $16 million lawsuit, according to ABC News.) Among other points, the report said the number of women journalists now reporting on the case changes how the story is told and shines a brighter light on challenges that women in tech and other fields face on a day-to-day basis.
- Hiring news roundup: Susana Polo, founder of The Mary Sue, is now entertainment editor at Vox Media’s video game vertical Polygon, Clare Ferguson was named design director and Wanyi Jiang was appointed art director at Marie Claire, Didi Gluck was named deputy editor, beauty, at More magazine, Lisa Arbetter was chosen as editor in chief at StyleWatch, Tracie Egan Morrissey is heading up Vice Media’s new female-centric channel Broadly, Charo Henriquez was appointed executive editor of Peopleenespanol.com, Susan Fraysse Russ is now senior vice president of communications at the Association of Magazine Media, Laurel Pinson joined Glamour as digital editorial director, Karen Meachen is now head of public relations at Hearst Magazines U.K., Kate Burns joined BuzzFeed as general manager for Europe, Vanessa Kingori was named publisher of British GQ, Lauren Frasca was promoted to programming VP at The Weather Channel, Karin Tracy joined Facebook as its beauty industry lead, S. Mitra Kalita moved to the Los Angeles Times as managing editor for editorial strategy, Kathleen Donohue was named account director at HGTV magazine, Katharine Viner was chosen as the new editor of the Guardian, and Solana Pyne was hired to head video at Quartz.
Let us know in the comments if there are any other recent stories or career moves you’d like us to include in our next Women in Media roundup.
Photo: Adweek
Technology for Publishing’s Women in Media blog highlights the news and achievements of female leaders and role models in the publishing and media industry. Look for our in-depth profiles and interviews of top women to watch. Is there someone you’d like to nominate for an upcoming Q&A? Drop us a note!
Posted by: Monica Sambataro
