For Attribution: Take The Lead Changing The Record on Women Journalists in Wikipedia

Take The Lead’s 50 Women Can Change The World in Journalism cohort spearheaded the Women Do News Edit-A-Thon in New York recently.

Virginia Woolf famously said, “For most of history, anonymous was a woman.”

A new effort launched by Take The Lead’s 50 Women in Journalism Can Change The World cohort, Women Do News, is out to give credit to women journalists where credit is due, particularly in the pages of Wikipedia.

“A new effort launched by @takeleadwomen ‘s 50 Women in Journalism cohort, #WomenDoNews, is out to give credit to #WomenJournalists in the pages of @Wikipedia. ”

The underrepresentation of women journalists in Wikipedia is a distinct imbalance, and was directly addressed recently in the #WomenDoNews Edit-A-Thon held at Luminary in New York, spearheaded by the 50 Women in Journalism cohort of Take The Lead.

“The underrepresentation of women journalists in @Wikipedia was directly addressed recently in the #WomenDoNews Edit-A-Thon held at Luminary in New York. #WomenInJournalism ”

From 10:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. on November 16, more than 25 volunteer journalists—many members of the 50 Women in Journalism cohort—worked to fill in the blanks about women identified for inclusion in Wikipedia for significant contributions to journalism globally. The effort is supported by the Ford Foundation Center for Social Justice, Luminary, and Take The Lead.

Gloria Feldt, co-founder and president of Take The Lead, was on hand for the Edit-A-thon. Feldt writes, “It’s a volunteer effort, led by experienced and ambitious journalists from our 50 Women in Journalism cohort. Emily Gertz (@ejgertz) has led this effort on the Wikipedia side. Among the planning committee are: Jareen Imam (@JareenAI) and Jeanette Woods (@Jea_Woods), who brought great ideas and told the world about what we’re up to. Katherine Rowlands (@News_Kat) was the originator of this idea, and so much of what we are doing is based on her vision. Angilee Shah (@angshah) has taken the lead in building the community and keeping everyone informed and with the information and spreadsheets needed to get the work done.”

“@GloriaFeldt, co-founder and president of @takeleadwomen, writes, “It’s a volunteer effort, led by experienced and ambitious journalists from our 50 Women in Journalism cohort.” #Edit-a-thon”

Read more in Take The Lead on Women Do News and its founders.

"Having the cohort for 50 Women Can Change the World in Journalism work on such an important project—increasing the number of women journalists represented in Wikipedia—is exactly the type of cohort plan we look for at Take The Lead. It's inspiring. It's critical for women in the media industry. And it brings the cohort together  in new ways that go beyond the leadership training we offer to them," says Fara Warner, award-winning journalist and leadership ambassador for Take The Lead.

The absence of women in the pages of Wikipedia is a longstanding concern. With more than 20 million article entries in 10 languages, Wikipedia is a major source of information gathered by volunteer editors with citations and links to verify sourcing.

Yet, less than 20 percent of Wikipedia editors identify as female, and less than 20 percent of biographies are about women.

“The absence of women in the pages of @Wikipedia is striking: Less than 20 percent of Wikipedia editors identify as female, and less than 20 percent of biographies are about women. #WikiFemale”

Aware of the acute gender imbalance at Wikipedia, Katherine Maher in 2019 in Wikimedia Foundation reports, “For instance, in 2014, Wikipedia editors evaluated all the biographies on English Wikipedia and found that only about 15% of them were about women. To rectify the imbalance, groups of volunteers, including the WikiProject Women Scientists and WikiProject Women in Red, have been identifying women who should have pages and creating articles about them.”

“Today, 17.82% of our biographies are about women. This near 3% jump may not sound like much, but it represents 86,182 new articles. That works out to 72 new articles a day, every single day, for the past three and a half years,” Maher writes.

The goal of Women Do News is to improve the quantity and quality of Wikipedia entries on women in journalism. The edit-a-thon was organized by several fellows of the 2019 50 Women Can Change the World in Journalism cohort of Take the Lead. It is supported by the Ford Foundation Center for Social Justice, Luminary, and Take The Lead.

“The goal of #WomenDoNews is to improve the quantity and quality of Wikipedia entries on women in journalism, supported by the @FordFoundation Center for Social Justice, Luminary, and @takeleadwomen. ”

“I think that every woman journalist we add has a big impact, “ says Jeannette Woods, story and talent curator at Air Media and a member of the 50 Women in Journalism cohort. “Our list includes wimen who are living, those that have passed on and women from diverse ethnic backgrounds. Each time we add a name we hope to add to the recognition of the excellence in our community.,” Woods says.

“What I found the most surprising was how storied and highly accomplished female journalists have been ignored by this central information service,” says Chandra Bozelko, columnist, member of the 50 Women in Journalism cohort and a leader with The OpEd Project.

Noting the absence of so many women journalists, such as Linda Deutsch, a U.S. reporter covering every major court case in the U.S. for five decades, speaks to bias as well as the Wikipedia “notability” requirements.

Bozelko explains, "Wikipedia's notability requirements have put women journalists in a position we've been in before: building someone else's legacy before our own."

According to Wikipedia, the effort of #WomenDoNews generated a crowd-sourced list of potential biographies to write, as well as a Wikidata/bot-generated list of potential biographies to write.

“According to @Wikipedia, the effort of #WomenDoNews generated a crowd-sourced list of potential biographies to write, as well as a list of potential biographies to write. #Progress”

The results of the recent effort resulted in new additions of international female journalists in Wikipedia articles including Christine von Kohl, Rose Eveleth, Nursel Duruel and Cecilia Ballí.

Women journalists who had their profiles and articles enhanced from the effort include Yemisi Akinbobola, Marvel Cooke and Christie Aschwanden.

Women journalists suggested for inclusion in Wikipedia with pending articles include both historic and contemporary journalists such as  Milly Bennett, (1897-1960), American journalist, author, memoirist, foreign correspondent covering Chinese and Russian revolutions, Spanish Civil War; Rita Henley Jensen, founder of Womensenews; Michelle Morial, journalist; Lonnae O'Neal Parker, journalist; Laila Alawa, Syrian/Danish-born American journalist and media entrepreneur who founded The Tempest (media company), the fastest-growing global media outlet for women; Catherine Quillman, journalist in Philadelphia; Beverly Wettenstein, New York based journalist, and Kristal Brent Zook, award winning journalist and professor.

Take The Lead reports, “Our goal is to increase the number of female journalists and writers on Wikipedia in order to add a level of safety and transparency and to elevate the profiles of female journalists around the world,” says Angilee Shah, an independent journalist who has worked in public media and as an international correspondent.

The absence of women journalists from public sites such as Wikipedia can be used “often times to discredit female journalists and negate their work,” Shah says.

“The absence of women #journalists from public sites such as @Wikipedia can be used “often times to discredit female journalists and negate their work,” @angshah says. ”

Jareen Imam, director of social news gathering at NBC News, and formerly with “48 Hours” as a researcher, followed by work at CNN and CBS, says inclusion in Wikipedia adds credibility.

She tells Take The Lead, “By creating theses profiles for women journalists, they can have legitimate profiles that will add to their security.”  

Along with Rowlands, President and Executive Director, Bay City News and BCN Foundation, and Gertz, a freelance journalist, Shah and Imam spearheaded the initiative as part of their work with Take The Lead’s 50 Women Can Change The World program.

“One of the ideas we were talking about is we were wanting to do something more tangible,” Imam says, “for elevating women in the industry.”

Warner adds, “I know that this edit-a-thon is just the beginning of an industry-wide effort within journalism to recognize women and their accomplishments in our field."

“@Farawarner @womenjournos adds, “I know that this edit-a-thon is just the beginning of an industry-wide effort within #journalism to recognize #women and their accomplishments in our field.” ”

If you would like to contribute to Women Do News, please sign up to the Women Do News Wikipedia Edit-a-thon mailing list to receive more information and instructions. No experience with editing directly on Wikipedia is necessary.