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A global study has confirmed women are grossly under-represented in the news – both as producers of it and characters within it.

The result, according to ‘Who Makes the News?’, is a picture of women who are largely absent and the projection of a “male-centred view of the world”. This effect is not just the product of who is portrayed and how they’re portrayed, but who’s invisible in the news…and what issues are ignored.

The study has also found that when women are represented, they’re poorly represented: predominantly portrayed in gendered roles, as wives and mothers, rather than in reference to their professional achievements.

The Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP) – designed to increase women's access to media and challenge gender stereotyping in the news - began in 1995 as an initiative of the United Nations Fourth Conference on Women held in Beijing. Every five years, the GMMP takes an international snapshot of mainstream news coverage of women in an effort to measure the quantity of women’s voices and the quality of their representation.

Newspapers, along with major radio and television news bulletins in 130 countries, including Australia, are being monitored and assessed as part of the project, which this time also measured major news websites’ coverage in a subset of 25 countries. And this instalment of the study represents a snapshot taken on November 10th, 2009.

The full report is due for completion in September but preliminary results were released last week, based on the data collected from 42 countries, including progressive democracies like South Africa, Switzerland and Sweden but excluding North American and Australian data which is not yet available.

6,902 news stories containing 14044 sources were analysed to produce the preliminary findings of the Global Media Monitoring Project 2010. They include:

• Only 24% of people covered in the news are women (up 3% on the 2005 figures)
• Only 18% of ‘experts’ featured in news stories are women (but 47% of sources reflecting popular opinion were women)
• Only 16% of issues covered specifically related to women
• Issues identified as being of special concern to women (e.g. violence against women; economic empowerment; political participation) averaged less than 1.5% of coverage
• Print was judged as the provider of the best coverage in the above categories while radio offered the worst reportage.
• Women are five times more likely to be represented in connection with their domestic roles (mother, wife etc) than men.
• News stories are six times more likely to reinforce gender stereotypes than challenge them
• Women remain underemployed as news producers and presenters with a staggering 17% decline measured in female radio reporters since 2005 to 27%

This last finding is critical as the study has also found that women reporters are twice as likely to challenge gender stereotypes (at the rate of 11% versus 6%). And news stories identified as being told by female reporters are also significantly more likely to include female characters (26% versus 19%)

So, the employment of women as journalists is, not surprisingly, likely to be critical to transformation of coverage of women. And, despite the serious decline in the number of women reporting for radio news, there were slight increases recorded in women reporters within television news (up 2% to 44%) and in newspapers (up 6% to 35%).

These findings contrast the feminisation of journalism courses where women graduates now so frequently outnumber men in Australia, that calls to journalism educators (like me) from News Editors targeting male graduates for employment, to ‘even out the numbers on air’, are not unusual.

But, as many women survivors of newsrooms know – it’s one thing to get a job as a journalist, it’s another thing to be assigned the big stories, or to carry what are perceived to be the most newsworthy rounds – economics and politics, for example. And it’s another battle entirely to get into editorial management positions which dictate assignments and often influence stories’ framing.

Senior women journalists report that things are changing - slowly. And progress can be seen and heard from inside the Canberra Press Gallery where more working mothers are occupying high profile roles.

One of the report’s preliminary recommendations is for the creation of training modules for students of media – in school and at university – to assist in improving the standard of coverage of women and women’s issues. And, while the media will always reflect and magnify broader societal prejudices, there’s value in such training – for both male and female students. But, from experience, such educational reform only really has significant and timely impact if newsrooms are convinced there is a problem, and if their managers agree to embrace such training.
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Until such change occurs, male-dominated news management ranks will continue to favour male reporters with the plum assignments; women will continue to be ignored or poorly represented as news subjects; and issues that most interest and affect women will continue to be under-reported.

Meantime, women will continue to seek alternative and self-representation through blogs and online communities that both value their contributions and represent their interests.

The most powerfully written and compelling stories I’ve read in the past month were women’s stories told by the women who lived them. They weren't news stories - in fact they may be judged through masculinist news lenses as 'too emotional', but they were personalised, human tales that resonated...with men and women.

You’d think that with the assault being endured by mainstream media outlets, fair and meaningful coverage of women and the issues that most engage 50% of the population would be a ‘no brainer’. But I don’t hear many editors screaming “Hold the front page…for a woman”.

If you'd like to hear me talking about this issue with ABC 666's Louise Maher, click here. I talk media issues with Louise each Monday afternoon    [read more]