Attitudes Toward ‘ Women in News’

When the Anita Hill story broke in 1991, with allegations of sexual harassment levied at Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas, the guys in the Capitol initially reacted with a collective shrug, recalls NPR’s Nina Totenberg. So did the male editors at the L.A. Times’ Washington bureau, says Narda Zacchino, the newspaper’s former associate editor.

But the story, which ultimately helped change the workplace by bringing the harassment issue into the limelight, is one example of how the female sensibility has altered not only the news, but also the newsroom and society itself. Those changes are explored in PBS’ “She Says: Women in News,” a quick-paced but illuminating one-hour documentary (8 p.m. KCET).

Interviews with 10 female journalists provide a balance of opinion.

“I have a perspective that a white male does not have,” says ABC’s Carole Simpson. “You could send me and a white reporter to the same event and both of us would come out with a completely different point of view.”

Counters Helen Thomas, dean of the White House press corps: “News is news and you’ll know it when you see it.” In a clip from 1975, when President Gerald Ford responds to a policy query by congratulating Thomas on being the first woman allowed into the Gridiron Club, she chuckles and snaps back, “Answer the question.”