"I was working with a lot of men when I started out in journalism, but there were always women who I saw doing the job," she said, citing CBS News' Elizabeth Palmer, a senior foreign correspondent who joined the network in 2000, as an early role model. She said CBS ordered new jackets to accommodate the growing number of women becoming war correspondents. A 2018 Pew study found that 61% of US newsroom employees are male, and 77% are non-Hispanic whites.Īround five years ago, Holly Williams and her colleagues at CBS News discovered the network only stocked standard unisex flak jackets sized for men. Journalism as a whole remains predominantly white and male.
Women in war journalism still encounter bias and barriers While female war correspondents still face obstacles, their work in Ukraine represents significant progress in establishing that women belong on the front lines.ĬNN chief international investigative correspondent Nima Elbagir reporting from Kharkiv, Ukraine. Flipping through news channels, you can watch Elbagir investigate war crimes committed by Russian forces Martha Raddatz of ABC News interviewing Ukrainian soldiers in undisclosed locations Alex Hogan of Fox News broadcasting from Lviv with smoke rising in the background and Holly Williams of CBS News speaking to shell-shocked children in evacuation centers outside Bucha. Women continue to play a prominent role in ongoing coverage of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, despite war journalism remaining a male-dominated field. Probably on a broader sociopolitical level, we should all still be upset. "I was just like, 'Yeah, you're going to need to take me as well,' and just smiled at him," she told Insider. But as her grandmother used to say, "If you behave as if the rules don't apply to you, then they won't." For Elbagir, and many women reporting from conflict zones, that kind of hindrance to their work is nothing new.