There are times when bias in what should be balanced reporting is so blatant it deserves mention. This is often the case but one such case struck me in such a way, I chose to mention it here. Now, before I continue I will confess that I have a bias and an agenda here. I make no attempt to hide it. This website, and my pieces in general, have never claimed to be objective. We are an opinion site.
That being confessed earlier this week, while driving to an appointment,
I heard a report from NPR. stating that Germany does not have the number of women on corporate boards that other countries in Europe, and other countries in the west, have. The solution suggested in the report was a simple one: other countries have quotas requiring a specified percentage of women on corporate boards, therefore Germany needs similar quotas.
After my appointment, I was listening to another report about how many Germans are growing both tired and wary of paying for the bailouts of other European countries. One is left asking how a country with such an imbalance of female executives could be the economic powerhouse of Europe. Now, I won’t suggest that Germany has the economic strength to support other countries weakness because of their disproportionate number of males in prominent corporate positions. Such a suggestion would be irresponsible. What I would suggest is perhaps the economic strength of Germany, which enables Europe’s largest economy to bailout struggling neighbors, has a lot to do a recent push for deregulation. I will also unapologetically suggest that this NPR report gleefully states this issue with a clear slant toward the need for imposing greater regulation.
If Germany were to accept some sort of legal-gender-quota for corporate boards, that would obviously be a move to greater regulation. This is not to say that there can’t be social pressure on business entities to promote eligible women to prominent positions, when it is the best interest of the individual businesses to do so. I would simply question the wisdom of legal force. Interestingly enough, the social argument is inadvertently supported by one of the proponents of quotas. Bascha Mika, the former editor-in-chief of the daily broadsheet Die Tageszeitung, was quoted in the piece saying,
"Men support each other, and although it's not called a male quota, it works like a quota, and a 100 percent quota at that," she says. "And then, I'm sorry to say, you get some really naive women saying, 'We don't want a quota' — as if men, de facto, didn't profit from it themselves."The supposed quota mentioned by Ms. Barscha is actually a social argument. Laws didn’t force men to “support each other;” they did so because of a social norm, and social norms can be changed without legal force. Ms. Bascha seems to be purposely blurring the lines between legal quotas and social norms to reinforce her weak and purely emotional argument, which is simply stated as; regulation is the only answer to fix the issue, rather than promoting an effort to change the social norm.
But the bias in the report is not confined solely to the statements of one person. The entire report was rife with these blurring of definitions and biases. Furthermore, the piece clearly takes a position in support of legal action when the author forgets all objectivity most poignantly in his closing paragraph.
“With Germany's economy booming again, it's not clear whether there is much appetite now for change in its male-dominated business world. What is clear is that after more than a decade of false promises, it may take more than business-led self-regulation to boost women's numbers on corporate boards.”It is fair to mention here the writer is clearly on the side of greater regulation in the form of legal quotas, rather than having any trust in a business’s own ability to address issues from within. It is also telling in that the positions mentioned in the piece are from women who support legal quotas, ONE woman who supports voluntary quotas, and a male who supports quotas because it would make the workplace "prettier and more colorful." This report use the strategy, ‘when in doubt go straight to the sexist comment.’ This old strategy makes it unnecessary to argue merit. And the reports lame attempt of a blanced view comes from one minor mention of a single individual who opposes legal quotas.
At no place in this is it even questioned if it is indeed a problem the German corporate world is predominantly male. Especially when in a growing number of countries (including the US) college graduates are disproportionately female, and many of women are going into to business-related fields. Few, if any, reports (certainly not any by NPR) are calling for legal action to address the female educational imbalance. Perhaps this is because Germany’s economy (like any economy) will be impacted by a growing female business class. But omissions like education favoring the cause of women in business are convenient to the regulation-narrative.
If readers of my article don’t believe me, I would encourage them to experience the NPR report for themselves. Arguments against new regulation in the form of legal-quotas are dismissed, if not fully discounted. This should be inexcusable for a news-entity like NPR, at least if they still claim to be at all balanced. And, having been a long time listener and ready of NPR, I can attest; imbalanced reporting is not reserved for stories about Germany. The predisposition toward regulation as a perceived answer to perceived social issues, is palpable.
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