This story originally appeared in the June 30 issue of La Fronde.
Last week, a story about the best music critics in the industry caused a spirited debate on X. Of course, with lists like these there will always be dissenters with their own hot takes on who’s the best. But people were also quick to point out one problematic omission: there were hardly any women interviewed for the piece.
This isn’t surprising in the least. The lack of visibility for women in criticism is a real issue, sadly a pretty common one I saw during my time covering music. But chalking it up to sexism overgeneralizes what’s really going on. The problem is a lot more complicated than just that. To really understand why this exclusion happens, I asked several women music journalists to share their experiences — and I'm sharing some of my own, too.
Before I started La Fronde I ran a music website for eight years called D.C. Music Download that covered indie music. Eventually, the person who would be my boss, Rudi Greenberg, noticed me and brought me on staff to cover the music and culture beat for the Washington Post Express. Then, WaPo's head pop music critic at the time, Chris Richards, asked me to contribute to the paper's weekly concert roundup.
Two people who had real influence made it a point to sponsor me. That almost never happens, and that's exactly the problem: you have tons of talented women music journalists, some might even have mentors advising them, but very few actually have real sponsors.
Having people advocate for you when you're not in the room is what makes or breaks someone's career. I would have never had those writing opportunities if Rudi or Chris didn't actively vouch for me. Years later, Chris also passed my name along to Rolling Stone to write a print feature and for two book opportunities. He was doing this all behind the scenes without even telling me. He was a consistent ally, never swayed by the political discourse of the moment or performing allyship for an audience.
The reason these music lists keep looking the way they do isn't just a visibility problem. It's a sponsorship problem.
Most music journalism gatekeepers hype up their own inner circle, usually made up of people who look like them. There are few Chris Richards in the world who go out of their way to advocate for people who aren't in that circle and who actively bring new people in.
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While lists like these highlight the issue, it’s the daily, largely invisible perpetuation of this insider mindset that results in a nearly all-male best critic roster. It happens in hiring journalists at legacy institutions, in pitches that get rejected by these institutions. Besides the sponsorship issue, media layoffs that have accelerated in recent years have reduced the number of diverse editors who have influence over who gets bylines.
Noella Williams credits her time studying journalism at a historically Black university, and the connections she made there, as the launching pad for her career. She started covering music festivals and albums for free as an undergrad before landing paid writing gigs for outlets like Teen Vogue and UPROXX. But over time she watched her connections lose their journalism jobs and saw the inclusion pipeline start to break.
"The Black editors and writers [I knew] have been laid off, leaving no one to speak up for emerging journalists," she told me. "In addition to editors that don't respond to pitches, decline unknown writers, or have minimal freelance budgets, you can feel the significant loss of outlets like Teen Vogue that publish young women and queer people."
It's why a lot of women opt to go the independent route. Journalist Elsie Ahachi says growing her personal brand on social media and YouTube has changed the power dynamic in some ways. Now, legacy institutions are coming to Elsie with opportunities. Case in point: during her latest sit-down interview, rap superstar Baby Keem opens with an emphatic endorsement that you usually don’t see from Keem: "I've been seeing your stuff for a minute so it was important to stop by."
"We've seen more women leading conversations, building platforms, and getting opportunities, which is real progress. But the people deciding who gets hired, who gets resources, and whose voices get amplified still have a huge influence on the industry. So I think things have improved, but I don't think the work is finished," she says.
Legacy music blogs like Pitchfork have seen their relevance slowly fade in the new media age. But millions of people still read their album reviews, and it's much easier for a journalist to get exposure there than to build an audience from scratch.
Getting people to own up to exclusionary behavior can be difficult. While at Condé, I worked with a brand that was putting together an influencer list — all white men. I flagged it to the editor, who looked genuinely mortified. The thought hadn't occurred to him. That’s the issue — that it simply hadn’t occurred to him to look outside the people who look like him, to give someone else just as deserving a spot on a list that would raise their profile. Worse, the situation was shrugged off as an innocent oversight, when the fact that this editor could even make such an oversight was the issue in the first place. It's harder to press for accountability in situations where lack of inclusion is seen as a mistake than if someone were to be outright sexist or racist. The explicit bigot gets flagged as having a real problem. That editor gets treated as someone who made an honest mistake and learned from it.
Getting in the room is only part of the story. Once women do, there's a whole different set of challenges waiting for them. Throughout Jewel Wicker’s time covering some of the biggest names in music like Gunna and Young Thug (who she’s now writing a book about thanks to his historic Atlanta trial), she’s typically found herself in situations where she’s the only woman in the room.
“What I mostly felt was that I had to engage with my job differently than if I were a male journalist,” she says. “As a music reporter, I'm often the only woman in studio sessions, in hotels and in other intimate settings where I could feel uncomfortable or be in vulnerable predicaments. In these instances, I usually didn't want to forgo an assignment because of my discomfort, but I felt hyper-aware of how I dressed and engaged with sources. This was an unfair burden that I certainly don't believe has changed for women in the industry in recent years.”
Jewel’s experience brings home another important point: sponsors aren’t just advocates for job opportunities — they also are essential to raising awareness of safety concerns like the ones Jewel brings up.
Media consolidation isn't slowing down, and the layoffs will keep coming. Those are hard to fight. But sponsorship is a choice. It’s those gatekeepers who ultimately decide whether to put a name forward or keep the circle closed. Most keep the circle closed, not necessarily out of malice, but out of habit and inertia. Out of a lack of imagination for who they could bring in, instead of the same old one-note lists.
"The arts are obviously suffering the most — just speak to any freelance reporter that was once staffed to cover film, television shows, music, gaming, or books," says Noella. "I dream of a future for music journalism free of tech-influenced, SEO-driven partnerships, full of weird writers from marginalized backgrounds, and an increase in investigative reporting."
That future won't arrive on its own. It won't change until the people with influence decide it has to.