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Twenty-five years after the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, news media remain far from being inclusive spaces for women, vulnerable women and historically-marginalised groups.

This has emerged from the latest preliminary data issued by the Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP), of which Prof. Brenda Murphy, from the Department of Gender and Sexualities, is also a member.

The GMMP measured a number of news media gender equality indicators, and found that glass ceilings appear to be setting in on certain important news media gender equality indicators, while others are edging upwards.

There have been small incremental changes towards parity in subjects and sources, particularly in broadcast news, but the pace of change, the report says, “remains glacial”.

Some interesting figures from the study:

• 48% of telecast news are reported by women
• Only 1% of Indigenous sources & subjects are women
• On the internet, women are less visible in stories related to COVID-19 than in non-COVID-19 news, especially in Latin America and Asia
• On TV, the proportion of women subjects and sources is just at the 30% of the threshold of COVID-related news, especially in Latin America and Asia
• Pandemic news reporting on the Internet appears to increase space for women’s voices interviewed as eyewitnesses and spokespersons
• Only 1 out of 3 health experts that appeared on televised news in relation to COVID-19 is a woman
• 43% of Covid-19-related stories are reported by women compared to 40% of non-COVID articles

"What this data tells us is that women are not as present in global news coverage as they should be. There is a substantial male bias, and instead of perpetuating it, we must redress gender discrimination, gender bias and stereotyping, locally and globally. This can be done by educating media producers so that they are aware of unconscious bias as they produce media content, and by ensuring that there more women in leadership roles within the media industry”, said Prof. Murphy

This preliminary data, which can be accessed , will be followed by a final report, which will present a gender analysis of the 25-year change in the presence, representation and voice of the subjects, sources in mainstream print newspapers, radio and television newscasts, influential news websites and news media tweets in 120 countries across the world, including Malta.