Gender equality in media reporting represents a crucial frontier for the voices and rights of women more broadly.
Released this week, the 2024 Women for Media report from the Women’s Leadership Institute Australia (WLIA) is the largest study on gender representation in Australian newsrooms.
This edition, An Unfinished Story: Understanding Gender Bias in Australian Newsrooms, offers a critical analysis of gender representation in media. Led by La Trobe University Professor of Political Communication Andrea Carson, the study analysed more than 200,000 articles to track the gender of bylines and expert sources across key news topics and major media outlets.
The report revealed a mixed report card for newsrooms. Here are some key takeaways:
While business news remains dominated by male reporters and experts, political reporting has shown improvement since 2021.
Women are often given the soft stories (like culture) while men get the critical and meaningful stories to cover (like economics). “While we found almost equal numbers of male and female journalists in Australia, women still disproportionately cover soft news stories, while men write the hard news topic areas,” Professor Carson said.
Men get more credit for their work. “Male journalists are more prevalent on the front-page stories and receive ‘exclusive’ taglines more than twice as often as women, while women remain underrepresented in newspapers’ premium pages and the opinion and commentary sections.
You’d be surprised at the publications leading the charge: “We found that The Herald Sun and The Canberra Times have similar numbers of men and women writing front-page stories and opinion articles,” said Professor Carson.
Men’s opinions get more real estate and airtime. The gender divide was most prevalent in the opinion pages, with men taking up more than 70 per cent of the opinion bylines, a steady creep of 6 per cent since 2021.
Men are considered more expert, and the study uncovered a disproportionate number of male experts quoted in news articles. “While men account for 80 per cent of expert opinions, we found women journalists are better at quoting women sources than men do,” Professor Carson said.
One of Mavens' favourite reporters, Narelda Jacobs OAM (Network 10).
Why does all this matter?
“Gender equality is vital in the news media for democracy and civic engagement,” says Professor Carson. “Everyone should have the same opportunity to participate in public life, free from any form of discrimination, but there are still significant gaps in gender representation across society, including our democratic institutions like government, the judiciary, and, as this report highlights, the media.”
Mavens agrees, and we’d add that a women’s point of view is essential to ensure the ongoing welfare of women and girls. It goes back to the saying ‘nothing about us without us’, and the media cannot represent half of the population authentically without diverse teams and leaders driving its reporting.
Additionally, we believe the media sets agendas which influence the perception of women in society and culture – so the media can directly affect things like women’s safety (read ‘Fixed It: Violence and the Representation of Women in the Media’ by Jane Gilmore, a deep dive into the effect of victim-blaming headlines on family violence in Australia).
WLIA Chair and prominent businesswoman Carol Schwartz AO emphasised the importance of continually prioritising diverse voices in news coverage.
“The stories we see, the voices we consider authoritative and the narratives we embrace all determine the future we build,” Schwartz said.
“We need to shift the norms of who we see and hear as leaders and experts – and that starts with bringing more diverse voices into public commentary.
“Both in terms of who produces the news and who features in it."
“This is about more than just gender; it’s about creating a more inclusive, responsive and collaborative society. Shared power and decision-making between men and women leads to better outcomes for all Australians.”
So, what do we need to do?
Professor Carson said media leaders and organisations could reduce the divide by encouraging and supporting women to take on roles in traditionally male-dominated reporting areas. They could also introduce newsroom policies and practices that ensured a more balanced distribution of story topics to both men and women journalists.
“They can increase the representation of women in high-visibility pages such as the front page and opinion and commentary sections, and in traditional male topic areas such as sports, business, economics and international affairs,” Professor Carson said.
“Male journalists should be aware of their tendency to choose male sources and to make conscious choices to include women experts in their reporting.”
For more insights and findings, read the full report ‘An Unfinished Story: Understanding Gender Bias in Australian Newsrooms’ here.
About the Women’s Leadership Institute Australia
Women’s Leadership Institute Australia (WLIA) is focused on growing the critical mass of diverse women leaders – because we’re firm believers that shared power and decision-making between men and women leads to better outcomes for all Australians.
About Carol Schwartz AO
Carol Schwartz is one of Australia’s most dynamic business and community leaders with a diverse career across property, the arts, finance, investment, entrepreneurship, government and health.
About Women for Media series
Read previous reports in the Women For Media series here.
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