Did you know that Gwen Ifill is the only woman moderating in the presidential debates (she’s moderating the Veep debate this fall) and has been the only woman doing it since 1992? I heart Gwen and all, but that’s kinda sad. For those of you who aren’t aware, Ifill works for PBS’s Washington Week and the Jim Lehrer News Hour. She’s reported for some of the top newspapers in the country including the NY Times, Baltimore Sun, Washington Post as well as NBC News. And she’s really cool bc she was born in Queens, N.Y. (What, I had to throw that in there). Maggie from Feminist Underground explains…

The first televised debates were in 1960, and, not surprisingly, had no female moderators or panelists. But when the next debates came in 1976, there was a significant amount of female involvement. All four debates had a female panelist or moderator. All four women from that year are excellent role models, the kind of women who entered journalism at a time when it was a heavily male-dominated industry but went on to become highly successful reporters.

And then look at this Wall Street Journal headline announcing the slate of presidential debate moderators (three in all):

Interesting that the WSJ left out Ifill in the headline…

You would think that with the broadening of cable television, (somewhat) more diversity in newsrooms, and other progress (kinda) made in the mainstream media, there would be more women in the mix, doing the three presidential debates this year… oh yeah, that topped with the fact that we had a woman running for office in the first place would make me think that there would be more lady involvement. There were soooo many primary debates in 2007 into 2008, many involving women, but what’s with the drop off now?

via Feministing