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From the newsroom to the reader, news is a man's world

2020-12-03T18:11:08.584Z


The leaders of the media, the protagonists of the information, the expert sources and the contents are predominantly male. Women hardly participate or are visible, according to an intercontinental study


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“I'm glad a woman came to interview me today.

We do everything and we understand each other.

I know you understand me ”.

The last thing Fatubintu Sar, president of one of the associations that represents fish processors in the port of Saint Louis, Senegal, expected was that on March 8, 2019, someone would approach his basket of salt and ask him about the precarious conditions in which they carried out their activity: no light, no roof, no security.

His surprise was justified.

In 2019, less than 1% of the news covered issues related to gender inequality.

This is clear from the report

The forgotten perspective of women in the media

, which analyzes more than 57 million pieces of information in six countries: United States, United Kingdom, India, Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa.

The proportion of female leaders in management and newsrooms, of protagonists or expert sources is also low.

More information

  • Neither experts, nor protagonists: information about the pandemic hides women

  • The beliefs with which the glass ceiling is made

  • Leave the women alone

"It's surprising and discouraging," says Luba Kassova, author of the study, commissioned by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, on the outcome of her research.

"Those who make the decisions about which stories are covered are predominantly men, the people who appear in the news are also mostly men, as well as those who consume more information," he describes.

"We have a predominantly male image throughout the news cycle."

This is also not a better photograph than ten years ago.

The study leaves no room for optimism to think that, at least, progress has been made.

This is not the case, at least in the last decade, clarifies the expert.

"The key to preventing progress in female representation in the media are the patriarchal values ​​that still exist both in the global south and in northern countries," says the expert.

The key to preventing progress in female representation in the media are the patriarchal values ​​that still exist both in the global south and in northern countries

Luba Kassova, author of the report

“Men are still in command of the media.

Women are a minority in leadership and top management positions in news organizations in each of the countries surveyed, ”the report notes.

According to their findings, they represented 26% in 2011. Last year, they were 35% in Kenya, 30% in the UK, 25% in South Africa, 23% in the United States and 14% in India.

This lack of parity at the decision-making level means that, “even in a newsroom with the same number of women as men, a masculine work culture prevails”, which translates into fewer sources, protagonists and female readers, Kassova concludes.

The data obtained by the researcher support her claim.

The expert voices of women "remain significantly silenced" in the news about politics, in which they are consulted between three and seven more than women specialists.

And in the economics section, inequality is much higher: the participation of men is between two and 31 times higher.

At best, they account for 29% of UK online news citations;

and at worst, 14% in India and 16% in Nigeria.

In analyzing how many are in the news, the figures are also "disappointing," notes Kassova in a video call from London.

So far this century, for every five men who have been the focus, the same has been done with a woman.

Its appearance has been, in addition, predominantly in information about crimes and violence or in the celebrity section, and much less in those of politics.

The country of the six studied that came closest to equality in this regard was the United Kingdom, with 30% female protagonism.

"And because for half a year the Prime Minister was a woman," adds Kassova.

In Kenya, they occupied the central role in 23% of the articles, 21% in India and the United States and, far behind, Nigeria with 15%.

For journalists who are tempted to affirm that such information only reflects a reality in which there are indeed fewer experts and political leaders, Kassova turns to statistics that demolish the argument.

When comparing the percentage of policies in the parliaments of the countries analyzed and of protagonists in the information in this area, only in India are there more of the latter (17%) than the former (13%), and in Nigeria there is the same proportion in both areas (6%).

In the rest, there is an underrepresentation in the media.

In South Africa, they focus 14% of the articles compared to 43% of women parliamentarians;

in Kenya that difference is nine points (13% versus 22%), seven in the United Kingdom (25% versus 32%) and six in the United States (18% versus 24%).

"And women are half of humanity," he stresses.

In terms of authoritative sources, there is a similar mismatch: there is a higher proportion of graduates with a master's degree than of female specialists in the news.

Of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals, only 8% of sector specialists mentioned gender equality among the three most urgent

The research goes beyond the data and tries to explain why this inequality persists in the world of information, as well as the consequences and to point out possible solutions.

"Those who make decisions and give opinions in the media do not prioritize gender issues because they do not see them as important issues to be dealt with," explains the author.

"People believe that equality has progressed enough in their countries and that the problem is solved," he adds.

Even among sustainability experts, it is not considered a priority.

Of the 17 UN Development Goals, only 8% mentioned it among the three most urgent, in a 2019 survey. Which leaves women and their rights in third place in the queue among global urgencies, according to professionals in the sector, only ahead of the creation of alliances (SDG 17) and industry and infrastructure (SDG 9).

Just the three who consider that they have advanced the most.

Another of the 2,000 academic documents consulted for this study is the report on sexist prejudices launched by the United Nations Development Program at the beginning of the year.

It said that 90% of men and 86% of women have at least one gender bias, such as believing that men are better political and business leaders than women, which impedes further progress towards equality.

“No person is free from these biases, often unconscious.

Including journalists, ”says Raquel Lagunas, an advisor at UNDP.

Those thoughts and beliefs "influence who is considered an authoritative source, the topics that are chosen and the language that is used," he adds by phone from New York.

And so, informants "create additional prejudices", adds Kassova.

No person is free from gender biases, often unconscious.

Including journalists

Raquel Lagunas, advisor at UNDP

Both specialists, Kassova and Lagunas, who are only known to each other as authors of their respective reports, believe that these gender biases are the drag that slows progress towards equality, in society in general and in the media in particular .

"The engine of decision-making is your beliefs and value system," argues the UNDP expert.

What in a newsroom translates into who assumes information, what issues are addressed, who are consulted and how it is told.

“The pernicious thing is that journalists are not aware of their prejudices.

That is why changes have to be made in the newsrooms so that journalists are aware of their own biases ”, suggests Kassova.

"You can't fix something if you don't see that it's broken."

Some of the interventions he recommends is counting sources or continuing training on a gender perspective.

So up to 21 actions in a list that is included in the report as a guide for the media.

To "raise awareness, remove barriers and create new habits", sums up Kassova.

“This report is a tool to promote equality in our newsrooms.

As a journalist, he challenges me, ”says Pamella Makotsi-Sittani, executive editor of the Kenyan Daily Nation, at a meeting with journalists organized by the Gates Foundation to evaluate the results of the study.

“We have the responsibility to monitor that the laws in favor of equality are implemented, we have to evaluate how women are silenced and marginalized, we have to warn about prejudices.

People think that patriarchal values ​​are a thing of the past, but they are not.

More women in the leadership and management of the media would drive the change towards greater equality, says Lagunas.

“Female leadership is one of the most powerful agents of transformation.

Positive role models of women in the public sphere can change perceptions faster than law ”.

But in newsrooms, as Kassova's research shows, they don't abound at the top of the ladder.

"We have seen that the patriarchal structure in the media is so ingrained that, to advance in their careers, women have to embrace a work culture and male perspective," she specifies.

So that this does not happen and a change takes place, Kassova suggests that it is the men themselves who take power who renounce a part of that power in favor of women.

"But to do so they have to see the benefit," he notes.

And there is.

In addition to being consistent with the journalistic ethics of representing the audience and the right of women to be seen and heard, which does not seem to be enough, there are business arguments.

"The economic model of the media is broken and reaching women is a way to expand the audience and increase the business," he explains.

According to their data, in 2019, women are “less intensive” news consumers than men worldwide.

64% of them say they are “extremely or very interested in the news” compared to 54% of them.

"This could be partly due to the fact that the news is produced mainly by and focuses on men, a problem exacerbated by a lack of understanding of the information needs of the female population," the report reads.

“We need media that cover and rewrite history without bias or prejudice.

Let them change the story ”, asks Lagunas, who confesses that he perceived the situation better than what the data in the report reflects.

"But it is not the sole responsibility of women who work in the media," adds Kassova.

"That would be unfair to them."

But it's not about blaming men either, because when they perceive themselves as the problem, they react negatively.

“The change has to be systemic throughout society.

And it has to start by recognizing that the patriarchal system exists throughout the world and we have to address it at all levels.

If not, we will crash against the glass ceiling constantly and there will be regressive forces pushing us back ”, he concludes.

Projects like the BBC's 50:50 show that starting a wave of change is possible, the study highlights.

"It showed how you can move quickly towards gender parity in the news experts," he notes.

It is about a challenge, informally initiated by presenter Ros Atkins in January 2017, of achieving gender balance in his collaborators.

And he did.

Since April 2018, the initiative was made official in the chain, which challenged the teams to achieve parity in their programs and content in one year.

By May 2019, the number of teams participating in the organization had multiplied to 500. "There are no excuses," says the Kenyan editor Makotsi-Sittani.

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2020-12-03

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