Editor's note: This is a preview of a story that will appear in the Winter 2013 print issue of Gateway Journalism Review.

Nails manicured, hair parted on the right and swept to the left, wearing a conservative charcoal suit with white shirt, Speaker of the House John Boehner was sworn in to office Jan. 3. The speaker added a splash of color to his ensemble wearing a cobalt-blue tie with white dots. The look mimicked that of the 2011 ceremony. The only real wardrobe difference between the two dates was the absence of a lapel pin he wore two years ago. (We are not yet certain why his staff let him commit such a fashion faux pas.)

The signs of age and stress were evident in the noticeable greying of hair on the 63-year-old Republican from Ohio. He also looked heavier in the face. Sadly, we were not able to get a good look at his shoes to know the brand. But they were black – and sensible for the day’s events, too.

How many articles have you read with paragraphs similar to these, but with reference to women in politics?

Articles that discuss the weight, attire and hairstyle of female elected officials are a mainstay in today’s media. The 2012 election has brought a record number of women to the U.S. House and Senate. If coverage of the Jan. 3 oaths of office events is any indication, we are certain to see even more articles with appearance details on women in politics.

When the Greek debt crisis began more than three years ago, those writing and broadcasting about it needed victims and villains for their narratives.

At first, those roles were blurred. In late 2009, Greeks had elected the center-left party, PASOK, to change a rotting system of clientelism and corruption that had bankrupted the country. Yet PASOK and the conservative party, New Democracy, were part of the problem. They had alternately governed Greece for the last 40 years. Most Greeks had voted for them over the years, and so both the political class and its voters shared the responsibility for their country’s dire straits.

The first international media reports on the debt crisis aired the country’s dirty laundry: massive tax evasion, a jobs-for-votes system that bloated the public sector with employees who did not work, and corruption so widespread that doctors at state hospitals asked their patients for bribes to perform routine surgeries. Greeks had long been ashamed of these practices, which were so ingrained in the country’s culture that they seemed impossible to challenge. And as long as times were good, few wanted to rock the boat. After PASOK revealed that the previous New Democracy government had hidden the country’s huge debt, George Papandreou’s center-left government was cast as the reformer. A prominent PASOK deputy, Theodoros Pangalos, proclaimed that all Greeks had to share the blame for past sins to save Greece and the eurozone.

The sports section of the New York Times’ “Today’s Headlines” email update was full of stories about fallen heroes. “Dispassionate End to a Crumbled American Romance” is one of the articles about Lance Armstrong’s overdue confession to using performance-enhancing drugs. “Image Becomes a Puzzle as Theories on Te’o Swirl” is an article about the odd case of Notre Dame football star Manti Te’o and his fake, dead girlfriend. Many people are talking about these two stories as isolated events of deception.

To me, these are just current examples of how easily men (especially male athletes) can – and do – fool the public and the media. Both want to idolize men and make them larger than life. Even when red flags are present, most media don’t do the work because they don’t want to dethrone a hero. Some even want to “be friends” with the proclaimed superstars – partly for the notoriety, partly to advance their journalism careers.

Women, however, frequently are doubted and questioned by the public and the media. Women frequently are shamed, blamed and dragged through the mud by the media, especially in stories dealing with sexual assault.

I continue to follow the Steubenville “Rape Crew” stories. I was appalled at how many of the articles, early on, questioned the 16-year-old victim – her appearance, her behavior, her “participation” in the events. Since the online advocacy group Anonymous got involved, the coverage seems to have taken a more aggressive approach, centered on the male football players that allegedly are involved.

But even with a new angle to the coverage, most of the articles I have read online that defend the victim, and other articles that defend women, are written by women. I have been asking why men can’t (or don’t) write in defense of women.

Yesterday, two articles dealing with Te’o and Notre Dame football were brought to my attention by friends: one by Irin Carmon, the other by Melinda Henneberger, both addressing Notre Dame’s lack of care as related to rape allegations and the death of a young woman. Both of these articles were written by women.

Even in articles that do not deal with sexual assault, women are held to a different standard. Women in politics often are questioned about their appearance, directly and indirectly. Olympic gold medalist Gabby Douglas had her moment of glory tainted by a controversy regarding her hair.

Many of these issues of gender representation are directly linked to what we, in the Western world, consider to be the ideal masculine persona. Meghan Murphy wrote a great article following the Newtown, Conn., shootings that addressed this issue. The article discusses the importance society places in “masculinity,” and how men feel the pressure to “perform” as “real men.” She wrote: “When men commit violence, they’re fulfilling expectations of their gender” – expectations that continually are advanced and stressed through media.

Media coverage is a reflection of society. In our society, strong men who win at all costs are portrayed as heroes, to be worshipped by all and desired by the opposite sex. Women who are strong and successful are labeled “bitches” or portrayed as selfish. Women who are victims of sexual crimes often are portrayed as “whores.” It is a longstanding – and, to me, unacceptable – double standard.

Editor's note: This is a preview of a story that will appear in the next print issue of Gateway Journalism Review.

By happy coincidence rather than clever planning, the Winter 2013 issue of Gateway Journalism Review is filled with stories about the full range of First Amendment issues in the news:

• Should public school student journalists have free expression rights or be subject to censorship by the principal?
• Should newspapers allow anonymous comments at the end of stories?
• Should Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act give online sites greater legal protection than dead-tree cousins?
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• Should reporters be able to tweet from a courtroom?
• Are colleges violating student free-speech rights by punishing intolerant speech?
• How has the Citizens United Supreme Court case influenced elections, especially in Missouri and the Midwest where retired investment guru Rex Sinquefield has spent more than $23 million in the past four years on 170 candidates?
• What is to be done about the plethora of false information that finds its way onto the Web and travels in a flash around the world?

This focus on free speech is fitting, because GJR just celebrated the First Amendment at its annual fundraiser in St. Louis.

Charles Lee “Cookie” Thornton walked into the Kirkwood (Mo.) City Council one night in February 2008 and opened fire on city officials. Police who arrived on scene within minutes shot and killed Thornton, but not before he had killed six people and wounded two others. One of those wounded was Todd Smith, a reporter covering the City Council meeting for Suburban Journals, a St. Louis-area group of publications.

Smith, who was shot in the right hand, found himself catapulted from his reporting beat into the spotlight of national media. Smith recalled the events of the night for a group of 40 who attended a recent News at Noon event titled “Massacres in the Media” that was sponsored by the St. Louis-area Society of Professional Journalists.

“I thought it would be a normal meeting,” Smith said. “I was typing notes on my computer and had no sense anything about that night would be different. I saw Cookie Thornton come in and … it is a tragic thing to see someone – to see people – killed.”

His first call, when receiving emergency medical treatment, was to his editor.

“I said, ‘I can’t finish writing this because I’ve been shot,’ ” Smith said. “I didn’t know what was going on really. It was all confusing at the time.”

He started to get media calls once he was at the hospital. Smith said his family was able to run interference for him, which helped.

“To go from a reporter to being in the news is something else,” Smith said. “In this business it sometimes gets lost that you are a human being.”

Keeping in touch with the human aspect of tragedy is important for members of the media. This is the line of thought expressed by Smith’s fellow panelist, Don Corrigan, editor-in-chief of the Webster-Kirkwood Times.

“It is different when you are a community journalist during something like this,” Corrigan said. “When the national media swoop in, they rely on local media for details. We had requests from CNN for photos of Thornton.”

“You know these people,” Corrigan added. “You write about them, cover them. They are not just the latest numbers, or the latest tally. They are people you know in the community.”

Members of the national media often appear to be cold when covering tragic such as the Kirkwood or Sandy Hook shootings, Corrigan said. He said many of the national media outlets have reporters that travel the country from tragedy to tragedy. Many of the reporters who covered the Kirkwood shootings left St. Louis and went straight to the site of the next big mass shooting at Northern Illinois University killings in DeKalb, Ill.

“I don’t know how they do it,” Corrigan said when discussing national media.

He stressed that reporters need to keep site of what’s really important when covering stories when many have been killed and injured. He recalled the words of a colleague: “At times like this, it’s more important to be human.”

The website of the Webster-Kirkwood Times received 50,000 to 60,000 hits a day following the shootings. The public wanted information. Corrigan discussed how he and his staff continued to work through the aftermath and the stress it put on them, since they personally knew the victims. He also said they knew early on who had been killed but did not immediately release that information to the public or national media.

“We had relationships with these people,” Corrigan said. “Out of respect of those relationships, we held the details until the next day. We also had to take time to grieve.”

The reporter who was covering the City Council meeting for the Webster-Kirkwood Times was traumatized by the event. Corrigan explained how the newspaper staff worked with her to help her through recovery and to move forward.

Corrigan said he struggles with teaching objectivity in his role as a professor teaching journalism at Webster University. He believes media should question the practice of offering what he called a “false balance.” Sometimes there is a truth, and it is on one side of an argument, he said, citing climate change as an example.

“Tools for covering news change every 20 years,” Corrigan said. “But the tools for being a human, for being a good reporter, don’t change. We need to remember we are human.”

Social media also presents unique challenges and opportunities when reporting on tragic events, Corrigan said. He worries about the accuracy of most social media news content.

“I am glad to work in community journalism,” Corrigan said. “We are loyal to the community. We are not worried about getting something out first, but getting it out accurately.”

Members of the audience questioned how media covered the event and expressed the opinion that most of the media failed to cover the “why” of the event, which was linked to mental health issues.

Smith, who since has been laid off, now works in social services. He said this new line of work helps him in his recovery, and he feels he is contributing to possibly stopping other events of violence.

The next News at Noon event will take place Feb. 14. The event will feature a year in review by local photojournalists.

Please see this two-part article written by William H. Freivogel, Gateway Journalism Review publisher, for background on the Kirkwood shootings:

Kirkwood's journey: Separating myths and realities about Meacham Park, Thornton, Part 1

Kirkwood's journey: Separating myths and realities about Meacham Park, Thornton, Part 2

For more information about the St. Louis Society of Professional Journalists, visit the website http://www.stlspj.org/events.