Who Makes the News

Panel discussion on the occasion of the 54th session of the Commission on the Status of Women.

Venue: Millennium UN Plaza Hotel, New York. 1 UN Plaza, 44th Street between 1st and 2nd Avenue, New York

Moderator: Ms. Joanne Sandler, UNIFEM Deputy Executive Director

Keynote speaker: Ms. Pat Mitchell, President, Paley Centre for Media, New York.
Ms. Sharon Bhagwan-Rolls, FemLink Pacific: Media Initiatives for Women, Fiji
Ms. Amie Joof, Executive Director, Inter Africa Network for Women, Media, Gender Equity and Development, Senegal
Ms. Lavinia Mohr, Director of Programmes, World Association for Christian Communication (WACC) 
Ms. Saniye Gülser Corat: Director, Division for Gender Equality, Bureau of Strategic Planning, UNESCO
Mr. Sanjay Suri: Editor in Chief, InterPress Service

Description:

In 2005, only one woman appeared for every four men as subjects in the world’s radio, television and print news.  Expert opinion in the news was also overwhelmingly male.  Only 10% of news stories focused centrally on women.

Since 1995 The Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP) has produced the longest-running, participatory research on women in the news media around the world. The only initiative of its kind, it engages volunteers in a world-wide effort to monitor national news media from a gender perspective over the course of a single day.  

On 9 November 2009, volunteers in 127 countries monitored their news media to gather data for the fourth edition of the Project. Will the preliminary results from 2009 show any change?  The panel will present the initial findings to assess progress towards balanced representation and participation of women in the world’s media, and debate what should be done by the media, governments and civil society groups to make progress on Section J (on Women and the Media) of the Beijing Platform for Action.