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Vani and Christy, radio hostsfrom Anna FM, interview a caregiver at CHES Ashram, an orphanage for children orphanedby HIV/AIDS. Georges Collinet, Internews Network |
A UNESCO media researcher, Margaret Gallagher, wrote in 1995: “As long as women and men are not given the possibility to work together on an equal basis, sharing the same rights and the same responsibilities, there is a democratic deficit in our societies”.
In its eight year, UNESCO’s campaign Women Make the News pursues gender equality in the media at global level. It is an initiative of profound symbolic and practical significance, striving to shatter the “glass ceiling” that pervades most media throughout the world.
By encouraging a globally diverse range of print, radio, television and electronic media to entrust their women journalists with editorial responsibility on International Women’s Day, March 8, Women Make the News draws attention to UNESCO’s specific objectives concerning women’s participation in media. These objectives have been shaped by the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995.
Gender equality in the media implies that women’s as well as men’s interests, concerns and experiences are included in news coverage and that the producers of that coverage are both women professionals and men professionals. UNESCO holds that the under-representation of women in the upper echelons of media management is both a symptom and cause of the inequality between the sexes and discrimination against women.
The exclusion of women from the news – as shapers and subjects of that news – is not only a gender issue. Freedom of expression, a highly important UNESCO objective, is best served by equal representation of working professionals in media. Media that discriminates against its professionals on the basis of gender, ethnic origin, disability or otherwise, severely compromises the independence and pluralism of information conveyed to local, national and international communities.
Women Make the News encourages a renewed emphasis on the importance of having a balanced and fair representation of both, women and men in the media as well as diversity of voices and opinions in order for the media to fulfill their democratic responsibility. The operation offers an opportunity for media audiences to appreciate the high quality journalism that women have to offer.
By encouraging a globally diverse range of print, radio, television and electronic media to entrust their women journalists with editorial responsibility on International Women’s Day, March 8, Women Make the News draws attention to UNESCO’s specific objectives concerning women’s participation in media. These objectives have been shaped by the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995.
Gender equality in the media implies that women’s as well as men’s interests, concerns and experiences are included in news coverage and that the producers of that coverage are both women professionals and men professionals. UNESCO holds that the under-representation of women in the upper echelons of media management is both a symptom and cause of the inequality between the sexes and discrimination against women.
The exclusion of women from the news – as shapers and subjects of that news – is not only a gender issue. Freedom of expression, a highly important UNESCO objective, is best served by equal representation of working professionals in media. Media that discriminates against its professionals on the basis of gender, ethnic origin, disability or otherwise, severely compromises the independence and pluralism of information conveyed to local, national and international communities.
Women Make the News encourages a renewed emphasis on the importance of having a balanced and fair representation of both, women and men in the media as well as diversity of voices and opinions in order for the media to fulfill their democratic responsibility. The operation offers an opportunity for media audiences to appreciate the high quality journalism that women have to offer.
