The UK Guardian published study Dec. 6 revealing that 77.4% of surveyed bylines from seven UK newspapers’ June 13 to July 8 editions belong to men, according to Journalism.co.uk.
The Guardian’s research (see here) announced that “many [UK publications] are over-whelmingly male dominated.”
To account for gender neutral names in bylines, the Guardian explained its researchers, led by Kira Cochrane, didn’t count those names. According to Cochrane, “This happened 15 or fewer times, across all the newspapers, in the space of each week, out of more than 3500 bylines altogether in that same time period, so it had, at most, a mild blurring effect on this media snapshot.” Cochrane also noted that for this survey, they only tacked “written content” — therefore, excluding cartoons and weather news.
According to Cochrane, “This wasn’t a scientific study, but it was an attempt to count every byline in as fair and straightforward a fashion as possible.”
See here more from the Guardian about the study.