Oh Snap

Someone Help RealClearPolitics With Their Reading Comprehension

RealClearPolitics.com made a list of top female journalists “missing” from MORE magazine’s list of seven notable female reporters. But their response is weird on two levels.

1. Their reasoning is dubious

RealClearPolitics includes three 2012 debate moderators, which is fair, but the rest of the list is suspect. Two blondes from FOX (Megyn Kelly, one of the aforementioned moderators, and Shannon Bream, who is apparently “a fixture on the campaign trail,” which I suppose sets her apart from all the other less blonde campaign trail fixtures) make the list, but several of the other ladies sport credentials that are looking a little musty. Amy Walter, for instance, was “named…one of the city’s top 50 journalists” by Washingtonian Magazine…in 2009. Dana Bash “won the Dirksen Award from the National Press Foundation”…in 2010. Gwen Ifill “moderated the vice presidential debates in 2004 and 2008 and is the author of “The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama.” All impressive achievements, to be sure, but RCP couldn’t find seven ladies with more current accolades?

2. They misunderstood the original story

None of that matters, though, because MORE Magazine’s story is about fashion! Their slideshow is called “Hail To The Sheath” and is introduced as such:

The seven newswomen on these pages are casting a eye on the candidates this election season. But scrutiny is a two-way street: even brilliant writers and reporters have to look good. Here, they wear fall’s best sheath dresses, pairing some style with their substance.

The response from RealClearPolitics:

MORE Magazine recently published a list of seven of America’s top female political journalists: MSNBC’s Chris Jansing, The New York Times’s Helene Cooper, CNN’s Soledad O’Brien, CBS’s Norah O’Donnell, PBS’s Christina Bellantoni, the Washington Post’s Kathleen Parker, and Politico’s Maggie Haberman.

MORE’s list is conspicuously incomplete. Here are seven more of the country’s most prominent female political journalists who were absent from the magazine’s list.

Guys. It was a slide show about dresses, not the best female journalists working today! Just the ones who look the best in sheath dresses, and if those two categories happen to overlap so be it. (Although your slideshow didn’t exactly hit the mark exactly either.)

Lesson of the day: let’s all read the introductions to everyone else’s slideshows.

TAGS: Conscientiousness | Female Journalists | RealClearPolitics

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