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Pushy or a Princess? Women Experts and UK Broadcast News*

One day during the run-up to the 2010 UK General Election, Lis Howell was listening to a BBC radio news analysis of a marginal constituency. She heard one male voice after another for nearly ten minutes. Back at her desk, Howell wrote a comment piece for Broadcast magazine – and a campaign to increase the number of female authority figures appearing on air in Britain was born. Howell and her colleagues began tracking the use of women as experts on leading British broadcast news programmes. The data showed that men consistently outnumbered female experts on the nation’s flagship television and radio news shows by a ratio of about 4.4:1 – a ratio disproportionate to the actual presence in British society of female authority figures in various occupations. This study, which also incorporates interview and questionnaire data from journalists and expert women, suggests two key reasons for the disparity: journalists applying preconceived attitudes about “the best person,” and women experts fearing being seen as “pushy” – or alternatively, seeking to be wooed.