Joe Foote has surveyed nightly television correspondent appearances for the past 14 years, and for the first time in a decade a female did not crack the top 10.

Foote, dean for the College of Mass Communication and Media Arts, said there are no women in the top-10 TV nightly news correspondent slots. The reason, Foote said, is because there are many qualified and familiar-faced men and only a few majors news slots.

There are many qualified men and there is a small area to fill, Foote said. There are so few positions and so few choices that it is very difficult for women and minorities to get up there.

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NBC’s Lisa Myers was the highest woman on the list. She finished in 12th place.

Twenty-six females made this list of the top-100 TV nightly news correspondents. Even though there are no women in the top 10 this year, there are more in the top 100 since Foot’s research began.

Chicago-based NBC reporter Jim Avila, of Hispanic descent, was ranked No. 5 and was the highest ranked minority of Foote’s list.

Of the 18 minorities on the list, 10 were male and eight were female.

This is the 14th year Foote has conducted this study. The data that Foote works with comes from the Television News Index Abstracts compiled at Vanderbilt University.

Foote said that when he started making this study national, women and minorities watched closely as the heads of the national networks began making some changes.

They really had discovered how badly they were represented, Foote said. Since the late ’80s they have said that something was not right.

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One reason for the rise of women and minorities is the huge contractions and shake-ups in the 1980s. A lot of white males lost their jobs.

Foote said this movement affected people everywhere and brought more understanding by management.

This is more of a public policy concern, Foote said. Networks started to promote women and minorities. Quite a success story developed through a sensitivity by management.

George Strait, nightly news correspondent for ABC, ranked 58th on the list. He said the networks are not interested in hiring minorities to influential positions.

The survey shows that the networks are not interested in women or minorities in positions where they would have the kind of impact that they could, Strait said. They have trouble assigning women and minorities to major beats like the White House and the Pentagon.

Strait said there are a lot of minorities and women that are more than qualified.

When asked if he saw change in the near future for women and minorities in nightly news, he said, Frankly, no.

Foote said he was the first to conduct the study 14 years ago. Yet, he has had some trouble along the way.

Robert Lichter, co-director for the Center for Media and Public Affairs in Washington, D.C., publishes the same information and, Foote said, it is usually is a race to get the list out.

Normally in academic life, that doesn’t happen, Foote said. We don’t compete to get our studies out first. This study has received a lot of national publicity. Lichter is more in the public eye and that is who his audience is.

Foote has a book coming out in the fall titled Network Correspondents:Foot Soldiers of TV News. It will be published by SIU Press and will be edited by Foote and John Jackson, provost and vice chancellor for Academic Affairs.

Foote said he will continue to publish this study because he has seen the impact it has had on society.

What I hope to do is keep the pressure on them, Foote said. This study is used by women and minorities for contract talks. The media is better because they hire different races, different backgrounds and people of different genders.