An alternative to inform.

It was not until now did I realize that there were very little news websites dedicated to women. When researching for a trustworthy alternative news organization, I was surprised by the low amount I found. There is a great division between men and women in the media world where majority of the media ownership is by men. Many people are trying to make a difference in women’s roles, including news anchors such as Katie Couric and Diane Sawyer. Although they are making a change, I realized that they are not only in competition with men, but also with each other. Filgate’s article spoke about the difference between the roles that these two anchor women played. I was simply amazed that women are constantly being judged and compared even when they’re trying to make a difference for themselves and other women. I have also come to realize that some news on the television is no longer really news since many of them are distorted into a source of entertainment. Therefore, I believe that there are better alternatives of being informed of news and specifically, women’s issues.

Making changes for women’s benefit can be hard, but not impossible. Women around the world are trying to modify their place in society through the media’s help. Many news organizations dedicated solely to women have been created through the internet in order to inform the larger audience about women's issues that they are unaware of. The independent news agency that I found was womensenews.org. Within this website, there are many news articles that cover different stories involving women’s actions. It was previously created by NOW Legal Defense for the purpose of distributing women’s news directly to women but eventually, the website was allowed to flourish on its own. 

Launched in 2000, its goal was to inform readers with specific news that can’t be found anywhere else and to enlighten women’s views on their own life. They look for self-employed writers worldwide in order to be sure that topics will touch upon different women’s issues such as politics, women’s rights, labor, and even reality TV. The agency has won several awards due to their validity and strives for changing women’s lives. Generally, the site is successful in reaching out to an audience. It is a non-profit agency that is supported by readers and foundations. The importance of news is often ignored but organizations, such as this one, tries to inspire women to make a difference in their own lives as well as those around the world.

In the “Women and Media Fact Sheet”, the number of women ownership in media was incredibly low. Women in media are underrepresented compared to the percentage of women in the world. Agencies similar to womensenews.org are created to inspire women to take action against this type of discrimination. According to “Media Ownership: Impact on Minority Ownership and Localism”, there hasn’t been much change in women and minority roles in the media. An extremely low amount of women and minorities occupy the higher titles of the media world. As the underrepresented groups strive for ownership, monoliths crush them before they can succeed.

Although women should be informed about the importance of women in the media, girls should also acknowledge it as well. In "Highlighting Girls in Youth Media", it is illustrated that girls should be given the chance to express their ideas. Girls are the future media makers and should not be restricted from becoming a part of media ownership. Females of all ages should be informed one way or another about the news that is not only beneficial to them, but also to the larger mass audience. In this case, I think that organizations that use the web to distribute news to women are very clever. Although there is heavy competition, it is still made a possibility for their material to be read by an audience. They try to cover stories in which other news media doesn't. This is the reason why I believe that womenenews.org will be very successful. It’s an agency that will only continue to grow and reach a larger audience as time goes by.

Credits: Women's eNews, CartoonStock