MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 14th July, 2021) The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) called on media to properly reflect the role of women in society after a study by the Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP) revealed on Wednesday that women make up just 25% of those heard, seen, or listened to in news content.
According to the study, the number of women as subjects and sources in digital news stories increased by 1% from 2015 to 2020, with a three-point improvement on news websites and a three-point decline in news media tweets.
Despite the increment in the news share of science and health stories in 2020 compared to earlier periods (from 10% in 2005 to 17% currently), women's presence in their coverage declined by five points after a steady rise between 2000 and 2015.
The study noted that gender-based violence stories rarely make headlines, just 1% of them do.
While reacting to this, the chair of the IFJ Gender Council, Maria Angeles Samperio, urged media to do more in promoting fair gender portrayal in news. She listed "guidelines on how to adopt an intersectional approach in the newsroom, content monitoring, and creating an inclusive working environment" as some of the solutions that can change the media's mindset toward gender equality.
The GMMP is a global NGO and a collaborative effort of women's rights organizations, grassroots groups, media associations, faith-based and interfaith organizations, university students, and researchers worldwide.
The GMMP's findings are drawn from 30,172 stories published last September in newspapers, broadcast on radio and television, and disseminated on news websites and via news media tweets in more than 100 countries.
