United States of America (USA)

The highest-paid men working for the state of Iowa make significantly more money than the best-paid women, a Gazette analysis of state data has found.

The median salary of the 499 highest-paid male employees was nearly $235,600 in the fiscal year that ended June 30. That's well above the $140,900 median salary of the top 499 female state employees.

"Wow," was the reaction of Rachel Scott, executive director of the Iowa Commission on the Status of Women.

Furthermore, the gap has increased by 20 percent in the past four years. (See chart.) Of the 100 highest-paid employees, 86 are men.

The governor's office said that the administration is "committed to ensuring that all people are paid an equal salary for equal work."

It noted that Culver signed an executive order creating the Governor's Diversity Council to address issues of inequity in state government. The administration will give careful consideration to the council's recommendations to improve gender pay equity, the office said.

The Media Bloggers Association ("MBA") announced today that it has launched a comprehensive program to provide bloggers access to the same sort of legal and financial resources long available to traditional media organizations including BlogInsure, a first of its kind liability insurance program for bloggers which provides coverage for all forms of defamation, invasion of privacy and copyright infringement or similar allegations arising out of blogging activities.

The cornerstone of the new program is an online course in media law developed by the Media Bloggers Association in partnership with The Poynter Institute's News University. The course, Online Media Law: The Basics for Bloggers and Other Online Publishers, was co-authored by David Ardia of the Citizen Media Law Project, which is jointly affiliated with Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet & Society and the Center for Citizen Media and Geanne Rosenberg of the City University of New York's Graduate School of Journalism and Baruch College. Scott Swift of Media/Professional Insurance created an assessment to evaluate the student's understanding of the material.