Who Makes the News? Campaign

The dates of the campaign have been selected to make a particular statement and to mobilise global action. February 16 is the one-year anniversary of the 2005 GMMP, in which hundreds of gender and media groups in 76 countries joined together to monitor nearly 13,000 news items; their investigation revealed that "the marginalisation of women in the news media is still very much a reality." The global GMMP 2005 report, which contains global, regional, and national quantitative and qualitative results, will be released in London at the Foreign Press Association on February 15 2006, setting off the 3-week campaign. Similarly, the end date of the campaign (March 8) is International Women's Day. On this day, WACC and its partners worldwide will join with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in offering a challenge to all media producing daily news to give editorial responsibility to women editors and journalists to direct the news on March 8 2006 as a first step towards promoting gender equality in the media (Click here for information on the 2005 effort).

This programme draws on advocacy as a strategy for challenging leaders of the news media, editors, media owners and journalists worldwide "to fulfil their democratic responsibility to represent women and men in a fair and balanced way." It relies on the participation of gender and media activists around the world, asking them to organise activities using the results of GMMP 2005 to establish a dialogue with news media on their representation of women and men and to explore ways to ensure that women are no longer marginalised in the news media. For instance, national launches of the global GMMP report and activities relating to the promotion of gender equality in and through the media will take place in many of the countries that participated in the research in 2005. Information and communication technology (ICT) - the Who Makes the News? website - will be used as a communication tool to both promote partners' activities and to offer opportunities for dialogue though blogs, etc. to monitor media coverage of women during the 3-week campaign period. The GMMP website will also encourage all interested throughout the world to become involved through online advocacy, such as by sending letters to local media managers to take up UNESCO's invitation on March 8 2006.

Gender Equality, Communication Rights.

According to WACC, women make up 52% of the world's population - but only make up a tiny fraction of the world's news story subjects, as revealed by the past few GMMP endeavours: On one day in 1995, women were 17% of news subjects; 5 years later, women were only 18% of news subjects worldwide.

To keep abreast of Who Makes the News? details, click here to subscribe to the campaign listserv. In addition, a printed "Take Action Pack" is available in English, Spanish, or French by clicking here.