Tag: diversity

Should journalists quote women as often as men?

Posted on by Shari Graydon

Do you think journalists should be compelled to quote women as often as they quote men? The proposition sounded a bit radical, even to me, back in 2014 when Edelman CEO Lisa Kimmel invited me to defend it in a public debate. 

Seven years on, it’s no longer a radical idea. Journalists and newsrooms across this country and around the world are now actively monitoring the sources they interview and the guests they feature in a bid to better reflect the realities of the populations they serve.

Last week with the help of media strategist and co-founder of Canadian Journalists of Colour, Anita Li, we launched #DiversifyYourSources — a campaign to encourage members of Canada’s news media to publicly pledge to track the gender of their sources to bridge the current, lamentable gap. And we’ve created a simple downloadable spreadsheet that makes it easy for them to monitor other dimensions of diversity, too.  

Many individual reporters have signed up, and more than a dozen editors-in-chief pledged on behalf of their entire newsrooms. These included Irene Gentle at the Toronto Star, Andrew Yates at HuffPost, and Steve Bartlett of Saltwater Press. 

Said Bartlett, “Media outlets must do a better job of reflecting the audiences and communities they serve. That cannot happen without diversifying the voices in their coverage. Our newsrooms are committing to do this. As a result, they’ll make an even greater difference by engaging and informing more people.”

The Toronto Star’s Irene Gentle cited “better journalism and a better society” when declaring her paper’s commitment to measuring, which predates our campaign. As her colleague, senior editor Julie Carl, noted, “We already embrace this principle, but it is always good to say these things out loud and proud.” 

Those who have pledged work in a wide variety of news formats, from online sites and multi-platform magazines to TV newsrooms and wire services. They include publishers and political correspondents, radio hosts and columnists. 

In the context of perpetual deadlines and dwindling resources, time-strapped reporters and producers aren’t really looking to add to their to-do list.  And as CBC radio host Duncan McCue notes, there’s no denying that “Diversifying your sources takes more time.” He acknowledges that “It’s not easy building relationships with vulnerable groups who have been historically left out of media. But hard work pays off, resulting in richer journalism and broader audiences.”

Our #DiversifyYourSources campaign doesn’t require those who pledge to commit to meeting a 50:50 ratio — though having news reporting and programming in all media reflect gender parity is our ultimate goal. But the tracking commitment is predicated on the recognition that “what gets measured gets done.” 

We know that for journalists who see their work as fundamental to the maintenance of democracy,  discovering from their own data that they’re seeking insight and context primarily from a small subsection of the population tends to inspire a change in practice. Adrienne Lafrance and Ed Yong of The Atlantic have both written about their experiences on this front. 

Meanwhile, a number of Canadian media organizations, large and small, have been quietly monitoring, improving and sharing their numbers for some time. 

A few years ago we publicly recognized the team behind TVO’s The Agenda for their explicit commitment to featuring as many women guests as men. And Scott White, the Editor-in-Chief of The Conversation and a board member of Informed Opinions has also led his colleagues in tracking their numbers to achieve equitable representation. 

“Calling all Canadian journalists: Join @Scott_White, editor-in-chief of @ConversationCA, and #DiversifyYourSources!

It takes less than 60 seconds to make this crucial commitment. Sign up and share today: https://t.co/zSRaF8qE1l #cdnmedia pic.twitter.com/L9aivmynO5

— Informed Opinions (@InformedOps) February 8, 2021“

In her pledge, Jennifer Ditchburn, Editor-in-Chief of Policy Options, who also serves on our board, said that 46.7% of authors contributing to her publication last year were women. Moreover, she noted, “We are also working to ensure our magazine reflects the overall diversity of Canadian society.” 

The coronavirus pandemic has likely helped increase many people’s appreciation of why these commitments are important.  Many studies and news reports have pointed out the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on women — especially Black, Indigenous, and immigrant women, as well as those living in poverty, or with a disability, or with an abuser.

How can you cover a global virus that has put hospital nurses, grocery store check-out clerks and long-term care home support workers on the front lines of the battle if you’re only interviewing men? 

In fact, the over-representation of women in public health and the exceptional communication skills of Drs. Teresa Tam, Deena Hinshaw and Bonnie Henry have contributed to the increased amount of air time women sources have gotten over the past six months. The shut-down or curtailment of many professional sports leagues has also led to a corresponding dip in coverage that typically quotes women a paltry 4% of the time. 

But what happens when the pandemic ends? 

Informed Opinions’ goal is to encourage consciousness now so that in the months ahead, the monitoring habit and resulting behaviour shift cements a new normal.

As I wrote in a piece published earlier this week by Policy Options,

Journalists regularly cite as inspiration for their work the goal of “afflicting the comfortable and comforting the afflicted.” Doing that requires much more attention to who’s being quoted, and measurement is necessary. So as part of our pledge campaign, we’ve created an electronic spreadsheet to facilitate the kind of self-monitoring that science journalist Ed Yong calls “a vaccine against self-delusion.” 

“This pandemic demands both kinds of vaccines. And our aim in encouraging journalists to embrace the responsibility they have to reflect the realities of all the citizens they serve, is a better, safer, more equitable world for all. “

We all have a stake in that.

If you’re a journalist, please sign the pledge. And if you’re not, please urge the journalists in your networks to do so.

Featuring more female sources could increase your audience engagement, research suggests

Posted on by Shari Graydon

This article was originally published on Poynter

What would happen if news media struggling to survive applied the productivity mantra “What gets measured gets done” to the sources they quote?

Business research, Hollywood sales data and anecdotal evidence from the news industry itself all suggest it’s worth a try.

In many western democracies — the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada included — most major news organizations continue to feature three or four times as many men as experts or sources as they do women.

This might have been more defensible a generation ago. Male CEOs, politicians and professionals were the norm, and we weren’t so clear about the costs of failing to consider how profoundly different men’s and women’s bodies and lives are when developing drugs, policies or programs.

But reams of respected business research has since found that when organizations draw on the talents of women, they make more informed decisions, better serve their customers and are ultimately more profitable. And continuing to rely primarily on a white, male subsection of the population to offer commentary and analysis when you’re trying to engage culturally diverse audiences that are 50% female? That hasn’t made sense for decades.

Nor is it good journalism. Diverse sources are a hallmark of responsible reporting. For news to effectively fulfill its democratic obligations, it needs to reflect the diverse perspectives of the citizens it purports to serve. Doing so is likely to engage more of them.

Entertainment box office figures are instructive. TV and film executives once believed that female audiences would watch programs aimed at men, but the reverse was not true. That rationale helped to justify decades of male-centric movies.

But a 2018 study found that on average, female-led films earned higher revenues than male-led films released in the same year. In an age of on-demand programming from a multitude of providers, the tastes of teenage boys no longer rule. Audiences want good storytelling and to see their realities reflected on large and small screens alike.

Good journalists understand this and many are already attempting to capitalize on a similar dynamic in terms of how they report and who they feature. Senior staff at Bloomberg and The Atlantic have been leading this charge for years. And in 2018, the BBC explicitly committed to meeting a 50:50 challenge, ensuring the equitable representation of male and female sources by this coming April.

Anecdotally, some media are discovering that such attention pays off. The producers of La sphére, a Radio Canada program that covered technology, noticed that efforts to achieve gender parity among guests corresponded with an increase in listeners. And The Financial Times determined that reframing one of its electronic newsletters to engage female readers inspired higher “open” rates among male readers as well.

Informed Opinions, the non-profit I lead, is looking to inspire others to mimic these experiments. We recently collaborated with scientists at Simon Fraser University to adapt the incentivizing power of a fitness tracker to this challenge. Leveraging the technology behind voice-activated assistants like Siri and Alexa, we created a tool designed to motivate journalists to pay more attention to the gender ratio of their sources.

Using big data analytics, our Gender Gap Tracker monitors the ratio of male to female sources quoted in Canada’s most influential news media. Its easy-to-read graphs are updated on a daily basis and reflect both the performance of individual newsrooms, and aggregate data from them all. From October through January, women’s voices remained steady at about 25 percent.

Most journalists know that doesn’t reflect well on either their journalism, or their audience engagement prospects. Beleaguered by industry disruptions, and competitive by nature, many are eager to improve. In fact, since we launched the Tracker on Feb. 4, women’s voices have increased by 4 percent.

This improvement has been aided by a number of grassroots women’s groups that have created databases of expert women across a wide range of fields. Our collective goal is to make it easier for journalists to find female sources who are both qualified and eager to share their insights.

Anyone familiar with the incentivizing power of a fitness tracker understands that what gets measured is more likely to get done. Like the 10,000-step crowd, news media may discover that the quantification leads to life-sustaining health benefits.

What Gets Measured Gets Done – #WGMGD

Posted on by Shari Graydon

This conversation should be over:

The business case for drawing on the entire talent pool is now unassailable — dozens of studies over more than two decades make clear that including women’s informed opinions makes companies more profitable, boards more effective, and research more relevant.

Most people no longer accept the absence of women’s insights and contributions as defensible; #HeForShe initiatives are springing up across North America; even senior male leaders in the tech and banking sectors have publicly declared their unwillingness to serve on panels made up only of guys.

And yet in one of the most progressive countries in the world, women’s voices in the public discourse remain outnumbered by a ratio of more than two to one.

The good news is that in 2010, when we launched Informed Opinions, the ratio was actually four or five male voices to every female one. So our efforts over the past seven years — training, motivating and supporting hundreds in getting their commentaries published, and many hundreds more in saying “yes” to interviews — have made a difference.

But we’re aiming to move from an average of 29% female sources, speakers and experts to an average of 50% by 2025. While the goal is ambitious, we know it’s achievable, because some news media organizations are already there. And what sets them apart from their less attentive competitors is that they’re paying attention and making an effort.

That’s why we’re now gearing up to launch our What Gets Measured Gets Done campaign.

To achieve our goal of reaching 50% female sources, speakers and experts quoted and featured in Canadian media, we will:

  • Collaborate with researchers and computing experts to monitor the gender representation of people quoted and featured in influential media, issuing an annual report card documenting progress relative to the benchmark data we already have;
  • Celebrate the leaders who recognize that democracy demands the news media play a pro-active role, and include diverse women’s voices and encourage the laggards to do better; and
  • Engage citizens to insist that they do.

We’re launching What Gets Measured Gets Done on October 18th, celebrating the anniversary of the Persons Case at an event on Parliament Hill.

In the process, we’ll recognize the incredible contributions of distinguished University of Ottawa law prof and indefatigable activist, Elizabeth Sheehy.

Although she has been speaking up for women’s legal rights her entire illustrious career, since participating in the second media engagement workshop we ever delivered in 2010, Ms. Sheehy has written and published 23 commentaries and given more than 100 interviews. Her extraordinarily well-informed opinions on issues related to all forms of violence against women have enlightened readers, listeners and viewers on a range of critically important aspects of the criminal justice system, and how it treats women who are victimized.

We’re also paying tribute to the producers and hosts of TVO’s The Agenda. The weekday news and public affairs program has not only helped to lead the conversation about the need for women’s voices in public discourse, it has also demonstrated that journalists who make an effort to include diverse sources — gender and otherwise —  can deliver context and analysis that is much more reflective of the diverse perspectives available in Canadian society.

Summer host Nam Kiwanuka will be on hand to represent the entire Agenda team, including regular host Steve Paikin, executive producer, Stacey Dunseath, and all their colleagues, who together have consistently achieved more than 45% female guests for more than two years now.

Here’s how you, too, can make a difference. Please:

  • Share our infographic;
  • Follow us on Twitter or Facebook so you see future campaign pieces as they’re released; and
  • Contact senior news editors, program and conference producers of the media you consume, and the events you attend to insist on greater diversity of perspectives.

What Gets Measured Gets Done is a business mantra frequently touted by executives as an effective means of monitoring performance and productivity. And millions of people sporting fitness trackers can attest to the motivational power of data to get them moving. You can help us to mobilize that kind of measurement and attention to bridge the gender gap in Canadian public discourse.

(In the meantime, for more on the relevance of “What gets measured gets done” in application to equality, see an earlier commentary published in the Ottawa Citizen on the inclusion of women on boards. Given the report just issued by Osler Hoskin Harcourt last week, it remains discouragingly relevant.)

Support our What Gets Measured Gets Done campaign and help us close the gender gap in Canadian public discourse by 2025. As a charitable non-profit, we’re able to issue tax receipts for all donations.