LA Times Exposes Gender Disparity Among Late-Night Shows’ Writers

The Los Angeles Times reported that while the left-wing late-night TV comedy shows have more female writers than they did decades ago, “not a single show has a writers room that is 50% (or more) female.”

Playing off the debut of the Mindy Kaling-penned movie, Late Night, the paper scolded the networks and streaming services alike for not having enough female-fronted late-night shows as well as a not enough women in the writer’s rooms.

Referencing Kaling’s Late Night, where a lone female writer suffers the bias and abuse from male writers of a late-night TV show, the Times article showed the relatively low percentage of female late-night comedy writers in a segment of the TV industry virtually ruled by woke politics. As each and every one of these late-night hosts leach further to the left, they still stand accused of some sexism in their back offices and production staffs.

Even as the article notes that every late-night show now has at least two female writers, the paper appears to suggest that it just isn’t enough.

“The days of such egregious exclusion appear to be over — every show currently on a broadcast, cable or streaming network has at least two credited writers who are women — but there is progress yet to be made: not a single show has a writer’s room that is 50% (or more) female,” the Times lamented.

One problem the paper points to is the fact that the “network” of writers is male-dominated and that aspiring female writers are so outside the loop that they never even hear of a job opening before a man finds out, applies, and gets the job. It is a good ol’ boy network of writers who know each other and look out for one another.

“Even being able to find out about jobs is so difficult and relies so much on systems that inherently have gender bias built into them, because the whole field is so male-dominated,” said successful Late Night with Seth Meyers writer Jenny Hagel.

Molly McNearney, co-head writer of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, (and Kimmel’s wife) added that the preponderance of applicants for those few, scarce writing jobs are also overwhelmingly male.

“The sad fact is that more men are applying for these jobs than women,” McNearney said. “It’s very frustrating. We’ll get a group of 300 packets, and maybe 50 will be from women.”

“It takes us a long time as a society to shift our mindset,” Hagel added about the shift in the industry that is leading to more women in the writer’s room.

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston.