Neither Expected Nor Planned: How Young Female Journalists Become Political Reporters

This study explores how young female journalists become political reporters, even as many profess little initial interest in politics and plan for careers in other areas of journalism. Drawing on Bourdieu, we show how educational and professional trajectories—themselves marked by gender differences—make political reporting a possible job option for political reporters in the United States. The choice to pursue a journalism degree characterizes a first step, and the feminization of journalism education ensures most aspirants are female. The pursuit of reporting internships, which women pursue more than men, cultivates the skills, experiences, and contacts that make them attractive job candidates; it also creates the perception that political reporting is a viable job. Finally, the desire for secure employment—itself reflective of a tendency for women to adopt more pragmatic approaches to their careers than men—leads many to seek political reporting jobs, which appear stable in a turbulent labor market. This account shows how past choices furnish reporters with the amount and type of capital necessary to make statehouse reporting a plausible job option. Such choices, we argue, constitute efforts to cope with—rather than reproduce or subvert—gender inequalities in journalism and society more broadly.