Rebecca Perlow /NLGJA Reporter

Akilah Monifa, center, speaks at a session on balancing life and work.

Life, work a blancing act

By Rebecca Perlow
NLGJA Reporter Staff Writer

As more women leave the journalism field to have children, they’re going to have less input into the decision-making process and content at newspapers and other media outlets, according to three journalists at a panel discussion Friday evening.  

The panel, “Superwoman: Working Through the Work-Life Balance,” was aimed at journalists raising families.

The panelists were NLGJA board member Akilah Monifa, editor of Emory Magazine at Emory University, Paige Parvin and moderator Kelly Griffith, bureau chief and columnist for the Orlando Sentinel.

Griffith spoke about a trend of women in the journalism profession dropping out when they had children.

“I can name so many of my friends and colleagues who are out of the profession,” Griffith said. “Not even taking a lower position, but out of journalism altogether. They’re writing kids’ books now.”

As more women leave, their voice is eliminated from decisions that affect editing, design and story conception. This void affects the tone and content of news coverage and could lead to a decline in women readers as fewer articles relate to them, Griffith said.

But many lesbians and bisexual women working as journalists may not have the option of quitting because of limited domestic partner benefits, which create inherent challenges. 
Panelists and many of the attendees stressed the importance of flexibility in order to maintain a work-life balance.

Parvin took a pay cut to move from working at a weekly publication to a quarterly. Monifa traveled extensively as part of the Spin Project, a non-profit organization, before taking a position in public relations when the former became a strain on her family life.

“There’s always some degree of sacrifice,” Monifa said. “I tried to make it clear from the beginning that I can do the work. I didn’t say I could be there 24/7.”

Parvin added that newsroom managers sometimes buy into the stereotype that LGBT journalists don’t have families and have that much more time to commit to working.
“It’s a process of educating [them] that many of us do have families and children that take us away,” Parvin said.

Griffith sees this as an issue that affects an entire newsroom, including single people without children who may feel they are carrying the burden of an extra workload.

“We often talk about [the work-life balance] in the frame of having children because that’s our experience. But single people have a family life also. It’s more than just being able to go pick your kids up. It’s managing your stress. It’s having a life.