The majority of front page articles published in Australia’s most popular news outlets continue to be written by men, a new study by the Women’s Leadership Institute Australia (WLIA) revealed this week. Men were also quoted more than twice as often as women – their opinions accounted for 78% of quoted sources, and their articles contained more words than the articles published by their female counterparts. The findings revealed that articles written by female journalists were less often featured on premium pages, and were less frequently tagged as “exclusive”, indicating a critical gender disparity in visibility and prestige.
The research, led by La Trobe University Professor of Political Communication Andrea Carson, analysed more than 200,000 articles published in March this year to track the gender of bylines and expert sources across key news topics and major media outlets. Professor Carson said that while there are equal numbers of male and female journalists in the country, women continued to disproportionately cover soft news stories, while men write the hard news topic areas. “Male journalists…receive ‘exclusive’ taglines more than twice as often as women, while women remain underrepresented in newspapers’ premium pages and the opinion and commentary sections,” she said. The study also revealed that women journalists are better at quoting women sources.
In an interview with BroadAgenda, Professor Carson said diversity in reporters and sources is a positive for journalism but also for democracy and for the media outlet’s economic survival. If we want news about our society to be accurate and holistic, we need to properly represent all groups in society. She reported that women are turning off news and are among the largest news avoiders according to the annual Digital News Report. One reason for this is because they do not see stories of interest to them or that reflect their experiences.
Among its several recommendations, the report encouraged media leaders to monitor newsroom gender equity and diversity policies that promote gender equity and equality, including initiatives to actively increase women’s presence in bylines, opinion pieces, “exclusive” taglines and as quoted experts.