[Whomakesthenews] Keep Watching! Media Monitoring Blog during the Three weeks of Action

[Myriam Horngren]

Dear All
Welcome to all of you to who I have not said hello to yet! I am Myriam
and I am the Advocacy and Network Coordinator here at WACC and
monitoring this list!
During the Three Weeks of Global Action, activities will be both live
through events organized by groups in over 30 countries but also online.
We invite you therefore to join us on our blogs.

The first blog aims at monitoring the Media throughout the 3 weeks until
8th March. We're not asking for much, just for you to write your
thoughts on anything you might have read, heard or seen which is
relevant to the campaign in the last week. As a friend of mine, a very
good journalist which works for a big international broadcaster said
when I was asked by a colleague of hers what my job was: "She is
watching us!" I invite you to keep watching either by posting directly
on-line at:
http://www.whomakesthenews.org/get_involved/speak_up_blogs/media_monitor
ing_blog/welcome_monitors#comments

or feel free to POST ON THIS LIST and we will forward your comments to
the web.


Below, some of the comments that have been posted so far to give you a
taster. Feel free to respond!
Myriam


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>From 16th February 2006, The Who Makes the News? Three Weeks of Global
Action on Gender and the Media will kick off and activists around the
world will be checking their news media throughout the three weeks and
reporting regularly on the good, the bad and the ugly regarding the
representation of women and men in the news media. We invite you to join
this global community by checking out your own media and share with us
all anything that catches your attention. It can be as simple as picking
up on an article or a picture that you liked/disliked/inspired you and
share it with us, to a more in-depth monitoring effort (see Quantitative
and Qualitative Monitoring on the WACC Gender and the News Media
Advocacy Toolkit, page 41-42) or see the more extensive GMMP media
monitoring methodology. So start blogging!
This blog entry was posted by Alejandra Davidziuk on Wednesday 08
February 2006 5:36:21 pm. You can leave a comment or trackback from your
own site.

10 Comments on "Welcome monitors!"

Comment from Gemma on 27/02/2006 11:56 am:
Fantastic! Well done to WACC, MMP and all the other participants all
over the world! This is a wonderful advocacy effort.

Comment from Bieke on 24/02/2006 8:25 am:
Hi, at the University of Gent (Belgium) we are taking action in this
amazing GMMP-project! Our workshop with 20 students is working out fine!
:-) The students are looking for interesting news about 'women in the
media' and will post their experiences next Thursday! So, watch out for
our comments ont this blog!!!

Comment from Myriam on 22/02/2006 6:11 pm:
Thanx for this, enlightning. Feel free to add links to the articles if
they are online. For us, on the 16th, we started very well: first day of
the campaign and on the front page of the Metro (free newspaper
available in most European cities and beyond now, but with a local angle
coverage), which many Londoners read when we catch the
underground/subway to work. On the first day of the campaign the front
page of the Metro was showing a 2/3 page picture of the arrival of
Rapper Kenye West (spelling?) at the British Music Award the night
before. The picture showed around 10 girls wearing nothing but a bra and
a thong each, all painted in gold and all wearing the same haircut. The
picture was taken from the back so you can easily imagine the view. If
we had any doubt that Western media was ahead of any other media
regarding gender representation (as we were often asked), on the first
day of the campaign, we got the answer. The GMMP report is right, there
is no difference and the issue is a global one.

Comment from Lindiwe Sola on 22/02/2006 1:06 pm:
I was reading the Observer/World on 22/02/06,the article entitled 'D-day
for the 'new Mugabe' of Africa. The article was reported by a Richard
Dowden on the 19th. It covers various men and one woman extensively, the
only other woman mentioned is Janet, as the president's formidable
wife.Allow me to repeat the story in brief, not 'briefs'.Ist to be
mentioned is President Yoweri Museveni, then his opponent Dr Kizza
Besigye and the news is about their political lives.Next comes
government spokesman Roger Kamushega representing the president, then
Andrew Mwenda described as the most articulate government critic, a
radio journalist.Eriya Kategaya is another man, this one opposes the
president's decision to serve another term.Then the extensively covered
woman, Winnie Byanyima, a Ugandan MP who was once the president's
girlfriend.The article then shows a history of the said affair and how
she, after failing to get the president to divorce said formidable wife,
she then married his opponent Besigye.She has currently come out
fighting against the president by threatening to expose several love
children fathered by the president.Apparently this female MP has nothing
political to say about this political battle except 'woman
talk'hey!Wither goest the Observer?

Comment from Aleksandra on 21/02/2006 10:03 am:
Montenegrin daily news "Dan":, 20.02.:"Gender equality law in Montenegro
will be adopted in the middle of 2006" and announcement for today 21.02.
round table about gender sensitive language with experts from Serbia
&Montenegro and region of Europe

Comment from Sheila George on 19/02/2006 11:32 am:
Here in Washington, D.C. in the United States, today's Washington Post
(19 February 2006) has a front-page feature story "After War Injury, An
Iraq Vet Takes On Politics" on a female Army helicopter pilot who lost
both legs in Iraq who is now running for political office in the U.S.
Congress.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-...icle/2006/02/18/AR2006021801295.html
. It is a pretty long story, covering a full page on the inside of the A
Section. It features 5 photos that I would consider standard "politian
photo op" photos (meeting voters, walking with staff, etc.) It does have
a photo that shows her disablity - artifical legs peeking out from a
long skirt as she strides along a street, but it is not exploitive. It
seems like a pretty balanced story on a female veteran running for
political office, but there is one tiny paragraph that I am not sure how
to analyse:
"A self-described girlie girl whose favorite color is pink, she watches
"America's Next Top Model" and laments not being able to wear feminine
shoes. She has ordered special prosthetic "runway feet" that will allow
for a two-inch heel...she still wears pink. She has a baseball jersey
that reads, "Dude, where's my leg?"

This is a very small part of a very long, serious article that shows
many sides of Tammy Duckworth: Army helicopter pilot, veteran, Ph.D,
married to a husband she describes as "a true partner" - how should we
view this one paragraph? Is it the reporter's way of showing the
personal,female side of this Army vet and politican? Is this how the
interviewee really did automatically characterize herself, or was it as
a result of leading questions by the reporter? Is this an example of
gender biased reporting? What do you think?

Cheers,
Sheila

Comment from Colleen Lowe-Morna and Loveness Jambaya on 17/02/2006 4:23
pm:
GMMP and snapshot of Southern Africa
Southern Africa has made some strides towards achieving greater balance
in the news and newsrooms but it is clear that there is still a long way
from achieving gender equality.

Prior to the GMMP 2005, Gender Links and the Media Institute of Southern
Africa (MISA) conducted a Gender and Media Baseline Study (GMBS) in 2002
drawing on GMMP's two previous researches. The GMBS however was a more
in-depth regional study as it was conducted over a month. Results showed
that women were under represented - of the 25 000 news items monitored,
women constituted only 17% of news sources.

Following this study all 13 Southern African countries participated in
the GMMP 2005 thus providing a useful benchmark for the region on how
far it has come in achieving gender equality in media. The study
revealed that women sources have increased from 17% in 2002 to 19% in
2005. Also nine out of the 13 SADC countries showed an improvement with
South Africa now leading the way with 26%. Further analysis shows that
six of these were above the global average of 21% - Mauritius,
Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania and Zimbabwe. The
seven which were below the global average included: Angola Botswana,
Lesotho, Seychelles, Tanzania and Zambia.
Among the key findings:
* There has been some improvement in women's voices being heard in hard
news
* But this is still out of sync with women's strengths and professions
* Women are most likely to be approached as news sources in their
personal rather than in their professional capacity
* More stories than not challenge stereotypes: Southern Africa is the
only sub-region in the study in which the proportion of stories
categorised as challenging stereotypes (4%) is higher than those
classified as reinforcing stereotypes(3%)
* Blatant and more subtle stereotypes abound
* Gender still hardly features as a topic
* There has been a dramatic increase of women in print media and there
is a greater diversity of women in different beats
* Women journalists are more likely to consult female views
* But the major challenge is still to find gender angles in all beats
and all stories
* And to deepen awareness that gender balance is good for journalism, as
well as for business.

Please engage on these findings on this blog even if you are from
outside the Southern African region - Making every voice count and
counting that it does



Comment from Loveness Jambaya on 17/02/2006 12:28 pm:
Analysis of The Sun, United Kingdom newspaper.
Background: The Sun is one of the tabloids that attracts the largest
female readership in United Kingdom yet notorious for its negative
portrayal of women. The question is - Is this what women want to read?
Is this why they buy the Sun? But there are a lot of opportunities for
gender aware reporting that the Sun and other newspapers can use. It is
not that every news story should be bogged down with too much detail and
analysis but gender dimensions to different stories should be explored
and aim to make gender aware reporting second nature for reporters.
An example: Thursday, 16th February, 2006, The Sun story Note saves
Kidnap girl By LACHLAN CARTWRIGHT, Summary: The story was about a 13
year old girl who was kidnapped by a 35 year old man. She got saved by
the note she threw out of the window from the apartment she was being
held. The 35 year old man has since been arrested on kidnapping the
minor.
The story could have been written differently to make it more gender
sensitive. While it is plausible that the reporter picked up that she is
a minor, the reporter could have picked on the implications of the
kidnapping on the minor who is a girl. He could have explored other
angles such as statistics on the prevalence rate of these kind of
kidnappings.
Please send comments on what women would want to read in newspapers to
this blog.

Comment from Song, Za kam on 11/02/2006 2:30 am:
Congratulation new Blog.
It can access easily in Burma, Bagan Cybertech banned many sites
.Blogger.com also access denied.
Thanks
20,Lawi Bual,
Tedim PO,
myanmar
tel;0095 70 50134

Comment from David Lin on 09/02/2006 11:49 am:
Congratulations to your web effort in making the GMMP campaign more
accessible through the Internet. I promoted the GMMP when attending the
Asia and the Pacific WACC Excom meetings held in Hong Kong and Fiji in
the past couple of weeks. A blog like this will definitely allow more
people to participate, even in those countries such as South Korea that
does not have GMMP activity yet. Keep up the good work!

David Lin
<On transit in Hong Kong International Airport, homeward bound>

Myriam Horngren
WACC Network and Advocacy Coordinator
357 Kennington Lane
London SE11 5QY
United Kingdom
Direct line: 44 (0) 207 587 3018
Fax: 44 (0) 207 735 0340
web: www.wacc.org.uk/ 
email: mh at wacc.org.uk
WHO MAKES THE NEWS? Three Weeks of Global Action on Gender and the
Media: Interested? register to our list
http://mailman-new.greennet.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/whomakesthenews and
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