Moving Women Forward in the News Media
Scheduled for the IWMF’s 20th anniversary year, The International Conference of Women Media Leaders will give women in high-level positions -- women with the ability to make change -- the unprecedented opportunity to reflect on where women in the news media need to go and how they are going to get there. The purpose of the conference is to create an international plan of action for advancing women journalists worldwide. The plan will also include a roadmap for how to accomplish that change.
Following the conference, the IWMF will engage delegates and the IWMF’s international network to make this plan of action a reality.
Starting Point: Evaluation of Women in the News Media
Full participation of women in the news media worldwide is far from a reality.
Women’s slow slog toward advancement in the industry was first documented more than 10 years ago by Margaret Gallagher in An Unfinished Story: Gender Patterns in Media Employment. Gallagher studied the global nature of women’s low rates of access to media employment, decision-making and ownership ranks.
In the United States, women comprise approximately 37 percent of newsrooms, but when it comes to top positions, the scales tip toward men, according to the American Society of News Editors yearly study of the media. This figure has remained steady for years.
In Sweden, which has one of the smallest disparities between women and men in journalism, according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report, women are almost half of the journalists in the media community. Men, however, hold three-quarters of leadership positions.
Studies in Germany and Spain show low numbers of women in newsrooms (22 percent in Germany and 25 percent in Spain). And a study conducted by the South African National Editors’ Forum and Gender Links showed that despite having a constitution rooted in equal rights, discriminatory practices and sexism in newsrooms are preventing women journalists from realizing their potential in that country.
Women in the news media are halted in their progress by “lingering stereotypes and subtle discrimination,” according to the 2009 UNESCO report, Women Make the News 2008.
The Global Report on the Status of Women in the News Media
The IWMF is conducting ground-breaking research that will, for the first time, provide a comprehensive picture of where women stand in the international news media. The Global Report on the Status of Women in the News Media will heavily inform the international conference. Conducted over the last year in more than 60 countries, the Global Report engaged more than 500 media companies to answer detailed questions about the women in their organizations. The results of the survey will be released in October 2010, in advance of the conference.
Organizing for Action
Delegates to the conference will use the Global Report to develop their plan of action. Some 100 delegates will be chosen to attend the conference. They will be selected based on their status in their news organizations, their ability to make change, their commitment to the media as a profession and recommendations from the IWMF’s worldwide network. The conference will also include observers from academia and the IWMF network, as well as students, and will include many IWMF Courage in Journalism Award winners. These delegates and observers will create a vibrant mix of women (and men) who have the interest and the expertise to move women forward in the international news media.
The conference will be held in March 2011 at the George Washington University Global Media Institute in Washington, D.C.
Working sessions during the conference will closely follow the outline of research contained in the Global Report. Delegates will tackle topics such as salary and position, terms of employment, quality of reporting assignments, recruiting and hiring, career advancement, and gender policies and goals.
The conference will also draw on the IWMF’s worldwide network to engage news media leaders to speak to the delegates. For example, during a conference held for its tenth anniversary, the IWMF drew on the expertise of then CEO of Bloomberg Michael Bloomberg, Ted Turner of CNN, Kathleen Black of Hearst and many others.
Partner in the Plan
When delegates go home after the conference, they will take with them a plan for action and a commitment from the IWMF to be a partner in that plan. The goal of the Global Report is to map the landscape for women in the international news media. The goal of the international conference is to begin to change that map for the better.
Supporters
Early supporters of the International Conference for Women Media Leaders include the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. The Global Report on the Status of Women in the News Media is supported by The Ford Foundation and UNESCO, among other donors.