In the summer of 1993, Jennifer L. Pozner was a rising sophomore at Hampshire College, a journalism major with dreams of becoming a columnist – the next Barbara Ehrenreich or Molly Ivins, she hoped. Then The New York Times Magazine published an excerpt from Katie Roiphe’s “The Morning After,” a controversial book questioning the existence of date rape on college campuses, and Pozner, shocked at seeing the Gray Lady run such a “grotesquely inaccurate” story, swerved off her career path.

“I was going through the story with a red pen in my hand,” she said. “I was a first-year journalism student, correcting these lies and factual inaccuracies that were being spread far and wide,” as the story caught fire, re-appearing throughout the mainstream media. The founder and director since 2001 of Women in Media and News (WIMN), Pozner has made it her mission as a media critic to increase women’s presence in the media and monitor inaccuracies and depictions of women that perpetuate false or unhealthy stereotypes.

In Miss Representation, actress-activist Rosario Dawson talks about how important it is for women to write their own stories. This is equally important in

entertainment and in journalism alike. Yet as I discuss in the film, today’s media climate is extremely toxic for women and girls, and for people of color.

That’s because the main purpose of TV programming today is not to entertain, engage or inform us. Sad but true: the purpose is generate sky-high profits for the tiny handful of mega-merged media corporations that own and control the vast majority of what we’re given to watch, see, hear and play in newspapers, magazines, TV, radio, movies, billboards and video games. When these six major conglomerates (Disney, Time Warner, NewsCorp, Viacom, CBS and General Electric) prioritize the financial bottom line over journalistic ethics, diverse and critical art, and the public interest, we all lose out… but women pay a particularly steep price.

Journalism is the only industry in America that has Constitutional protection, because a healthy democracy cannot function without a free, independent, critical press. Yet for decades, groups like Women In Media & News, Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting, the White House Project and the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film have documented that women are misrepresented and marginalized as op-ed writers, front-page news sources, lead anchors, and commentators… that is, when they aren’t missing entirely.

Christina Hendricks’ bold, retro-bedecked curves

as Joan on AMC’s Mad Men have elicited as many positive headlines as the series itself — was named

Event Reminder: “$h*t My TV Says: Revealing Gender & Race in Reality TV & Pop Culture”

…an evening with Jennifer L. Pozner, author of Reality Bites Back: The Troubling Truth About Guilty Pleasure TV, and entertainment journalist Janice Rhoshalle Littlejohn, contributor to the L.A. Times, TV Guide, Essence, Emmy magazine and more. Moderated by Morgane Veronique Richardson of Refuse the Silence.

WHAT: Los Angeles Book Launch for Reality Bites Back

WHEN: Nov 17, 7:30 – 9:30

WHERE: Stories Books and Cafe, 1716 Sunset Blvd. Echo Park, CA 90026

Why are reality TV’s stock characters (The Desperate Bachelorette, The Angry Black Woman, The Douchebag Dude, etc.) so regressive? What are Frankenbites, and other behind-the-scenes open secrets in the reality TV industry? Why does pop culture culture reduce women and people of color to such limiting stereotypes? Find out in the town that creates them at the L.A. book launch for Reality Bites Back! Expect critical media commentary, revealing insights about gender, race and pop culture — and lots of laughs.

Free. Lively conversation among the presenters, with ample time for audience Q&A, followed by Jennifer L. Pozner signing her book, Reality Bites Back. And after: schmoozing. What could be better?

Reality Bites Back officially hits bookstores today [!!] and I can’t tell you how excited I am. You know who else is excited about the book? Canadians. To mark the official publication date, let’s take a look at the warm reception Reality Bites Back is getting from the Canadian media.

• Excerpt: The November issue of Elle Canada magazine includes “The Surreal Life…Reality TV: Harmful fluff or a humorous escape?” (PDF). This three-page feature — teased on the cover — comes complete with photos from Flavor of Love, The Hills, The Real Housewives of Orange County, The Bachelorette, The Newlyweds, and more. The excerpt focuses on reality TV’s tropes about women discussed in chapter three of the book, “Bitches and Morons and Skanks, Oh My! What Reality TV Teaches Us About Women.” (Please send a letter to the editor of Elle Canada thanking them for running this story and asking for more pieces examining women and the media! Email elleletters@ellecanada.com.)

• Column: On Saturday, Leah McLaren, columnist for The Globe and Mail, a leading Canadian newspaper, wrote:

“If you want proof of what a long way we haven’t come, just check out an episode of The Bachelor.

30-second-action: Do you think challenging representations of gender and race in entertainment media should be a crucial aspect of media literacy — and of a media justice agenda?

I do. (That’s what there’s a “Fun with Media Literacy” chapter in Reality Bites Back, and section on this site.) And media literacy advocate, novelist and media producer Sofia Quintero agrees. We’re excited to present this session at the 2011 National Conference on Media Reform — but we’ll only be able to do so if you VOTE FOR THIS WORKSHOP, BY THE END OF THE DAY MONDAY, OCT. 25 to make it to the NCMR program:

Keeping It Unreal: Decoding Gender, Race and Reality TV—A Media Literacy Workshop

Weepy, white Cinderella-wannabes in network-assembled harems compete for the attentions of one horny “Prince Charming” on dating shows such as “The Bachelor” (ABC), “Joe Millionaire” (FOX), and “For Love or Money” (NBC), whimpering that their lives will never be complete without husbands. On cable series such as VH1’s “Flavor of Love,” “Real Chance of Love” and “For the Love of Ray J,” scantily-clad women of color are depicted as real-life music video vixens, providing lap dances, sexual favors, and maid services to “win” dates with Black bachelors cast as modern day minstrels, thugs, and buffoons.