Since #Twitdef began in late November, I have had the extraordinary experience of seeing my name in the headlines, as the Editor in Chief of The Australian , Chris Mitchell, repeatedly threatened to sue me for defamation, via his newspaper.

The threats came in response to a few tweets I posted during the Journalism Education Association of Australia conference in Sydney on November 25th, in which I quoted Mitchell’s former employee, well-respected rural reporter Asa Wahlquist, who addressed the conference. She was highly critical of The Australian’s stance on Climate Change.

You can read the background here. And you can listen to Wahlquist's address on the ABC's website

Last week, I received a letter of demand from Mitchell’s lawyers, requiring an apology for my tweets and inviting me to visit The Australian to observe the operations of its newsroom and editorial processes.

Today, my lawyers - engaged by the University of Canberra, my employer - have responded to Mitchell's letter

Unfortunately I remain limited in what I can say at this point. But the ongoing support of colleagues in media, academia, and in online communtiies like Twitter, is very much appreciated.

Please note: due to the ongoing threat of legal action in this case, I am unable to post comments on this story at this stage. But I am enjoying reading the comments you're contributing nonetheless! :)    [read more]

Chris Mitchell, the Editor in Chief of Rupert Murdoch's flagship newspaper in Australia The Australian, is threatening to sue me for defamation over tweets I posted from an academic conference of journalism educators held in Sydney last week.

He is using his newspaper to make these threats and he has repeated them to Crikey

The tweets I posted quoted one of Mitchell's former reporters, award winning rural and science journalist Asa Wahlquist, who delivered an address to a panel on the reporting of Climate Change at The Australian during the Journalism Education Association Australia conference on Thursday.

I was attending the conference at the University of Technology as a speaker, in my capacity as a University of Canberra (UC) journalism lecturer.

UC Vice Chancellor, Professor Stephen Parker, has provided the following statement on the issue:

“(I am) aware of the situation and (I am) concerned about the implications of it for freedom of academic expression. (I) continue to provide full support for academics providing responsible comment on matters of public interest such as this, which includes accurately summarising what experienced journalists have said about the workings of the nation’s media”

All I am personally permitted to say on the issue at this stage is the following: "My University has not received any communication from Mr Mitchell and I have been asked not to comment further on the detail of what transpired until we know what allegations are being made against me and the University and have had an opportunity to take legal advice.”

I continue to strongly value media freedom and freedom of expression.

The only other thing I can say publicly at this point is...thanks to all those who have offered well wishes and support. It is very much appreciated.

* Twitdef (abbreviated from 'Twitter Defamation') Is a Twitter hashtag established by a micro-blogger to aggregate some of the conversation on Twitter swirling around the issue    [read more]

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]