Literary Gender Bias at NPR

The Boston Phoenix examines it.

From the piece...

My own research has turned up even more damaging statistics. To test Weiner's hypothesis, I turned to another literary gatekeeper: public radio. NPR is one of the few mass media outlets to devote regular coverage to books and novelists. According to their own Web site, 34 million people tune into NPR stations every week, and almost 27 million listen regularly to at least one NPR show. And NPR drives sales: as any bookseller will tell you, a guest spot on Fresh Air sends droves of right-minded Americans scurrying to their local independent.

Does NPR, arguably the most far-reaching book-review outlet in America, favor women or men? I tallied the genders of novelists reviewed or interviewed between August 1 and November 31, 2011, on the NPR shows Fresh Air, All Things Considered,Talk of the Nation, Morning Edition, and Weekend Edition, and the WBUR shows On Point and Here and Now.

As it turns out, public media is worse than even the New York Times. Far worse. NPR and WBUR talked about male writers about 70 percent of the time. Of the roughly 60 works of fiction discussed on NPR, only about 20 were written by women. Of the six novelists featured on more than one program, all but Amy Waldman, author of The Submission, were men. Of the three novelists interviewed on more than one program, all were men. Terry Gross interviewed twice as many male as female novelists, and Morning Edition apparently dedicated no coverage at all to women fiction writers.