No excuses for media not to hear women’s voices

As author of the Listening to Voices survey in 2010 and co-author of the updated survey earlier this year, I would like to respond to Matt Cooper’s article in the Irish Examiner (Apr 13).

I welcome his contribution to the debate on female commentators in the media. Cooper criticises the survey for not recognising that he had interviewed Dr Maureen Gaffney for 30 minutes on one particular day. The other panellists were not timed either and numerous sporting and business interviews were neither logged nor timed, and if they had the figures would have been further distorted.

The aim of this particular survey was just to log the male and female voices on air, but the next survey may well look at timing the contributions of contributors.