Behind the Bloomberg News Women’s Project

Lisa Kassenaar is a veteran reporter and editor for Bloomberg News and the driving force behind the Bloomberg News Women’s Project, an initiative to ensure women are better represented in the news.

Bloomberg In Depth recently spoke with Lisa to discuss the origins of the project and the extent of her involvement.

Here is an excerpt:

Q: Where did this idea come from? How did the Bloomberg News Women’s Project come to be?

LK: In 2010, Bloomberg News began a project to infuse all of our journalism with more women – as sources and voices, and as newsmakers in business, markets, politics and government. We know that women haven’t been running things – just 4 percent of S&P 500 CEOs are female – but we also know that women are half the people, and an underreported influence on the evolving global economic story.

Q: How did you get involved?

LK: I was a senior writer at Bloomberg Markets and had been covering Wall Street firms during the financial crisis. As that period waned, we talked about how few women had been part of the story. Editor-in-chief Matt Winkler asked me to figure out how to address it, and we started by deciding that we should not create a “women’s team.” We wanted all of our reporters and editors to see the world a little differently and to find and report on women from the perspective of their own beats.

Read more here.