Women are more visible in the news than ever before, but they are still far behind men in terms of equality. Women make up 40 per cent of reporters and 25 per cent of news sources across print, TV, radio, online news, and Twitter, according to the recently released Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP).
This was a new high for women in the journalism industry as both reporters and sources, but they are still far from equal. According to the report, closing the gender gap in news will take another 67 years.
When the UN recognises that continuing gender imbalance in media coverage leads to women and girls' social, economic, and political marginalisation, the slow improvement reported in the sixth GMMP study since 1995 is difficult to justify.
The GMMP is the largest study of gender depiction in the media in the world. On September 29, 2020, the latest results were based on news coverage from 116 countries. The newest survey, which was intended to be a snapshot of a typical news day taken once every five years, gathered over 30,000 stories, a quarter of which were related to COVID-19.
Increased Women Reporters
In terms of gender balance, Aotearoa New Zealand outperforms the global average. Women made up a record number of reporters and presenters (68 per cent) and were used as sources in articles (33 per cent ).
The 2020 results represent an improvement over the 2010 and 2015 outcomes, when women's media visibility in New Zealand remained stagnant while it increased in many other nations. Women are still more likely to present and report the news than to appear in it in New Zealand and around the world.
Women made up nearly half of academic expert and activist sources in 2020, according to other favourable data. Women covered much of New Zealand's economic news, which centred on jobs and included women's personal experiences. This is hopeful during a global pandemic with poor health outcomes and uneven economic consequences — yet it is not a result obtained across all regions in the survey.
Inequality In Sports Journalism
However, despite less sports activities being hosted during the pandemic, women's invisibility in sports coverage continues to degrade media equality in New Zealand, a pattern that has been consistent in previous studies.
Journalists concerned about the coverage of women's sports have also observed the prominence of male bylines and the reporting hierarchy's domination of male sports.
While many media analysts believe that having more women in journalism will increase coverage of women and gender issues, the outcomes from New Zealand are mixed.