Media Shift: What Jane Fonda Might Say to George Clooney
Issue 2849— June 9, 2025
Twenty years ago, I sat at a crowded table in a basement in midtown Manhattan. I can’t remember where, nor did I have any idea what I was getting myself into—but when Gloria Steinem asks you to a meeting, you tend to go.
Carol Jenkins, Pat Mitchell, Jane Fonda, Robin Morgan, and a half dozen other prominent women in various aspects of media were there.
Stunned by the reelection of George W. Bush, and especially by the press’s softball reporting that failed to inform the public about how his policies would harm women, it was one of those “We must do something” moments in the women’s movement.
But what?
Pat Mitchell, at the time president and CEO of PBS, formerly executive producer of Turner Broadcasting System, and before that with many firsts as a woman in media, proposed a solution: a women’s media entity, to train, promote, and give airtime to women’s perspectives and expertise.
We had all heard the excuses: producers said they couldn’t find qualified women, or they had included a woman at some time once on a topic. Lalalalala.
It hadn’t occurred to many media bookers and reporters that there was a plethora of women with expertise, not just in “women’s issues,” those between the navel and the knee as we used to say. In fact, there were well-qualified women who could address every newsworthy topic from the economy to politics to global security.
In addition, producers were apparently clueless that all-male (usually all white male at that) panels on birth control, abortion, and other women’s health and right issues looked downright ridiculous.
And so, the Women’s Media Center was born with the mission to make women powerful and visible in the media.
L-R: WMC president Julie Burton, Jane Fonda, Gloria Steinem, Robin Morgan, WMC founding president Carol Jenkins
It set about its first successful two decades, researching and disseminating the status of women in media, training through its Progressive Women’s Voices program, and aggregating through Shesource hundreds of women experts on almost any topic so that no booker or producer need ever say they can’t find a qualified woman to speak.
I attended the 20th anniversary gala last week at the J.W. Marriott Essex House on Central Park South in New York City.
There was much to celebrate, including six exemplary honorees, that included:
o Geralyn White Dreyfous, Film producer, Co-Founder of JOLT, and Impact Partners
o S. Mitra Kalita, Author; Co-Founder and CEO of URL Media and Epicenter NYC
o Imani Perry, Professor of Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality, and of African and American Studies, Harvard Radcliffe Institute·
o Erica Smiley, Author, and Executive Director of Jobs With Justice
o Jessica Valenti, Author, Writer, Activist, and Creator of Abortion, Every Day,
It’s no longer unusual to see a female anchor on television, hear her on radio or podcast, or read a woman’s name on a byline in a major news outlet.
The solution to the problem changes the problem.
Yet, we have many more complex issues with the media now than 20 years ago when I was on the Women’s Media Center founding board. It’s no longer just about getting more women in front of the camera or in media leadership.
It’s also about how to get the full range of stories with accurate framing and full information and without the persistent false balance that gives equal weight to “both sides“ without attention to facts or veracity of the speaker.
Compounding the problems are imploding newsrooms with fewer journalists employed to dig for the facts. The economics of media changed as corporate ownership in which profit is the main driver became the norm.
As Albert Einstein said, “The problems of today can only be solved at a higher level of thinking than that which created them.”
The media in general is more fragmented than it was two decades ago, making it possible and even likely that citizens get information from their own echo chambers, listening to and seeing media spin that reinforces what they already believe. The rise of the concept of “alternative facts” and outlets that are blatantly partisan has exacerbated the problem. And they all have women in prominent roles.
So we must think beyond making women visible and powerful in the media; it’s imperative to ensure that the women and men of the Fourth Estate report not only accurately, but also truthfully, and (my own pet peeve) that they will not accept answers without verification but will ask that next probing question so that political spin is at least out in the open, and challenged when necessary. And lastly, that false balance, giving equal weight to “both sidesism” regardless of facts, gives way to better researched and reasoned reportage.
As my Google search says: “Truth is most often used to mean in accord with fact or reality. Accuracy is the quality of being true, but includes the element of being correct, precise or exact. So, one can be truthful, but the power of words and semantics can be used very cleverly to intimate, insinuate, and imply things that may not be accurate.”
Which brings me to George Clooney, starring in the Broadway play, “Good Night and Good Luck.” It’s the story of the 1950’s revered CBS News Anchor Edward R. Murrow and his high profile public take down of the crusading anti-Communist U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-WI), whose intimidation tactics are eerily similar to some we see today.
Murrow skewered McCarthy with facts and by explaining the logical and political context. That took courage and journalistic integrity.
“We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason,” he said.
Clooney’s Murrow quoted Shakespeare, “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves,” as he called out the public’s complicity in allowing McCarthy’s Big Lie to be reported without counterbalancing facts.
It was a shameful era, in which many lives were wrecked and careers lost by unproven accusations.
Seventy years later, we are again at a moment when each of us is called to embrace exactly the kind of courage and integrity that Murrow exemplified in his journalism. And his message about complicity is as relevant today.
That’s why Take The Lead’s Power Up Concert and Conference theme this year is “Courage to Lead.” We believe people are looking for examples, and we intend to provide them.
Jane Fonda’s parting call to action to the men and women supporters who filled the glitzy Women’s Media Center gala room was a Take The Lead mantra, and it fit for Clooney too:
”You have the power. Own it!”
Gloria Feldt with Jane Fonda at the recent WMC 20th Anniversary Gala.
GLORIA FELDT is the Cofounder and President of Take The Lead, a motivational speaker, and a global expert in women’s leadership development and DEI for individuals and companies that want to build gender balance. She is a bestselling author of five books, most recently Intentioning: Sex, Power, Pandemics, and How Women Will Take The Lead for (Everyone’s) Good. Honored as Forbes 50 Over 50, and Former President of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, she is a frequent media commentator. Learn more at www.gloriafeldt.com and www.taketheleadwomen.com. Find her @GloriaFeldt on all social media.