The Commission

At 11.00 am, WACC Secretary General Randy Naylor welcomed the participants and announced the next session, a

Media Roundtable to debate the following:

Good journalism involves a search for diversity and balance in subject matter, perspectives and points of view. Fair representation of women is simply a matter of good journalism. The” Who Makes the News? 2005” report shows that this is currently not the case.

Chair of the Roundtable was Jon Snow (Presenter Channel 4 News) and panelists were Ferial Haffajee, Editor of the Mail & Guardian South Africa, Lesley Abdela MBE, Eyecatcher Associates / Shevolution , Chief Executive of Project Parity, Stephen Pritchard, Board Member of the Organisation of News Ombudsmen and Letters Editor for the

Observer, Bob Jobbins OBE (former head of BBC World Service News and Current Affairs and Chairman of the Rory Peck Trust) and Lindsey Hilsum (Royal Television Society Specialist Journalist of the Year award 2003 and 2005, International Editor Channel 4 News).

Witnesses were representatives from: Amnesty International, Article 19, International Federation of Journalists, and WACC.

The roundtable debate started with the Agnès Callamard’s statement, director of Article 19. She pointed out 3 main characteristics of censorship:

  1. journalism censorship (where women are not presented or interviewed in media because they are women)
  2. denial of the leadership and expertise of women;
  3. women are only symbol of glamour and beauty when presented news content censorship (misrepresentation of news of specific interest to women)

Steven Pritchard from the Observer agreed with Agnès Callamard on her opinion that women are represented as glamorous rather than smart, or experts. From his experience, women readers send letters and e-mails to the Observer as a reaction to gender misrepresentation.

Agnès Callamard stated there was an information gap forwarded by media that is as significant and important to women’s life such as for instance gynecological issues (sexual reproduction, abortion)

Lindsey Hilsum: Do British media censor information about women? She believes that censorship is a big word, and should be used very carefully.

Agnès Callamard replied that censorship is the ‘right’ word.

Ferial Haffajee used the word ignorance instead of censorship. She also reflected that media reflect the system in one country.

Agnès Callamard insisted that there is a constant denial of women’s voices, leadership and experience and that this is a global trend as per the report.

Lesley Abdela gave an example with the training conducted by the BBC in many foreign countries, where BBC exports the best and the worst habits and it cannot be avoided.

The second key point is to STOP Invisibility and make women’s voices visible.

Chair highlighted that there is a certain order in media. Media will speak to anybody at the end of the day, due to lack of media workers and journalists. Channel 4 works on employing as many women possible.

Lesley Abdela agreed on this point and said that trained journalists are needed as well as programme evaluation of gender equality in media.

Agnès Callamard mentioned that 20 years ago there were no voices of women on human rights issues (and no adequate law, for that matter). Today, the situation has changed. Now, there is the same battle to be held regarding the news media on gender equality policies.

Dafna Lemish, witnessing for WACC looked at four areas that the question for debate raised:

  1. Who are the women in news media reports?
  2. How are they being portrayed when interviewed? (She mentioned the most common and stereotyped presentation as mothers, housewives, dependants).
  3. Language (different usage of language in gender representation; words like mankind, he, men)
  4. Where are women being interviewed in media (TV, Radio, Print media, and on what subjects?

Bob Jobbins reacted to Dafna’s statement with a question for her: Would she be disappointed if the GMMP event doesn’t show up in media news on the conference day?

Dafna Lemish replied that indeed she would be very disappointed.

Regarding the use of language, Dafna highlighted the need to perform more and more education and trainings on this subject in order to change media behaviour.

Lindsey Hilsum asked a question - Why do women write for tabloids about celebrities’ husbands and similar themes? Dafna replied that the media and society at large have rules and if someone wants to succeed she or he has to play by the rules regardless of gender. Women play the game by whatever existing ‘rules’ in order to succeed.

Mindy Ran from International Federation of Journalists highlighted that in meetings with organizations she works for issues for gender relations in the newsroom are the same all over the world: sexual harassment, pregnancy discrimination, women

journalists dealing only with ‘soft subjects’, or having to work part time or free lance. What is necessary in her opinion is to break down sexual stereotypes and women reporting on ‘soft’ subjects. She said: ‘I would like to read a text written by a male journalist about his research on breast feeding. That would be very interesting’. For her, journalism often means high pressure and stress. Women are sent out to report without any experience or training. Finally she highlighted a the real irony that whilst women are often represented as victims in the media, at the same time there is a major human rights movement going on in the world, questioning how media is indeed a mirror onto the world.

Gita Sahgal from the Campaign Against Violence against Women, Amnesty International presented that on issues of gender based violence,media are on one hand not representing the extent of the problem (only 1% of the stories in the

report looked at gender based violence) but are also culpable ofre-victimizing ‘the victim’. She also highlighted that Amnesty itself had struggled with its traditional use of victim images to get media attention and that it was the issue of representation of gender based violence that led Amnesty to question its own use of language and imagery. She called on the news media to do the same and work in partnership with organisations in the field to review practices of representation.

Stefania Milan, who moderated the live blog during the launch, noted that “the room is pretty full and the audience is largely made up of women. There are perhaps no more than 15-20 men!” And added a comment from Marta, journalist and media consultant: “it seems that here people are confusing the role of advocates and journalists. Journalists are catalyst for change but reporting the news rather than taking side.”

Myriam Horngren commented in the live blog that she felt moved with the Chair, Jon Snow, closed the meeting and genuinely showed surprise at the level of intensity and passion and key issues that had been raised during the two hours. She added that “it was a real boost that he thought Gender and News Media was not in fact a solved issue on which liberal thinking individuals and organisations had agreed on a long time ago but was very much a live issue and that dialogue was necessary.”

Myriam also highlighted what Stephen Pritchard said, that “on the surface no one is against gender equality but what the Who Makes the News report does is to unpack the reality behind gender biases and that raised a debate which in turn proved that the issue was not ‘solved’ for progressive media.”

Participants of the Roundtable concluded that the subject is not about women changing the media. It is for the people at the top of the media houses, women and men who have responsibilities to change the media.