WUNRN
http://whomakesthenews.org/journalism-kit
Learning Resource
Kit for Gender-Ethical Journalism and Media House Policy
The
kit is the result of collaboration between the World Association of Christian
Communication (WACC) and the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) to
redress gender disparities in news media content.
Little
progress has been made since the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action called for
more gender sensitivity in the media and self-regulatory mechanisms to
eliminate gender-biased programming. Research such as the Global Media
Monitoring Project shows just how marginalised women remain in the news. In
2010, the GMMP revealed that women make up only 24% of the people heard, read about
or seen in the news.
The
IFJ launched the Ethical Journalism Initiative to confront on-going
discrimination in the news and reconnect journalists to their mission by
enforcing core ethical standards. Challenging sensationalism and stereotypes,
checking facts, abiding by codes of conduct, supporting independent
self-regulatory bodies are some of the actions identified to uphold media
quality and rebuild the public’s trust in the news. Fair gender portrayal is
one of the issues to be given priority if media hope to fully reflect the role
women play in society. The widespread use of social media, blogs and the
development of online news should not be overlooked. Numerous cases reveal a
failure to portray gender issues fairly and accurately and very few initiatives
exist to develop ethical standards and avoid unfair and outdated stereotypes.
The
kit aims to provide an answer to the gender gap in news content and lack of
self-regulatory mechanisms - where these do not exist - to confront gender
bias. It is organised in two books that may be read independently of each
other. Book 1 discusses conceptual issues pertaining to gender,
media and professional ethics. Book 2 presents gender-ethical reporting guidelines on
several thematic areas.