"There is a worldwide increase in hostility against journalists who report for external audiences, which especially impedes reporting from conflict areas and on important social and political matters. Some political leaders have sought to discredit and delegitimize both journalists from abroad and l
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ocals doing foreign correspondence, by branding them as threats to state security or spreaders of false information. When taking arbitrary actions and applying disproportionate restrictions on journalists reporting for external media, state authorities are breaching their obligations under international law. Mobilizations to strengthen protections for journalists’ safety and stamp out impunity have won increased support from governments, the legal community and other stakeholders; but the importance of protecting foreign correspondents merits more international attention." (Key trends, page 1)
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"This report [...] presents a bespoke analysis of how women around the world consume and perceive news, based on data on audience behaviour from 11 countries featured in the 2020 Reuters Institute Digital News Report: Kenya, South Africa, South Korea, Hong Kong, Japan, Mexico, Brazil, Finland, Germa
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ny, United Kingdom, and United States. We have selected these 11 to represent as wide a geographical base as possible, and cover some of the richest and poorest countries in the report [...] As the country profiles show, a growing set of women-led protest movements against femicide, sexual assault, and online harassment around the world have created a new debate around how the news portrays women, and new conversations about who is in the newsroom deciding the agenda and framing the news. While news reporting has sometimes played an important role in these debates, it is also clear that many of them are driven by feminists who use social media as activist tools to speak out and organise against sexism and misogyny, sometimes in the news media too [...] Key Findings: Men are more likely than women to say that they are ‘extremely’ or ‘very’ interested in political news across all markets; Women are more likely than men to express high levels of interest in news about health and education; Women are more likely than men to report that they use TV news programmes or bulletins; Facebook is still an important source of news for both men and women, but YouTube and Twitter are more popular with men; Women will talk about news face to face with friends and family more than men. They are less likely to comment on news on news websites or on social media; Women’s levels of trust in news, and concern over ‘fake news’ online, are broadly similar to men’s." (https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk)
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"In this RISJ factsheet we analyse the gender break-down of top editors in a strategic sample of 200 major online and offline news outlets in ten different markets across four continents. Looking at a sample of ten top online news outlets and ten top offline news outlets in each of these ten markets
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, we find: Only 23% of the top editors across the 200 major outlets in our sample are women, despite the fact that, on average, 40% of journalists in the ten markets are women; Every single market covered has a majority of men among the top editors, including countries like Brazil and Finland where women outnumber men among working journalists; The percentage of women in top editorial positions varies significantly from market to market. In Japan, none of the major news outlets in our sample have a woman as their top editor. In South Africa, 47% of the top editors are women; When we compare the percentage of women working in journalism with the percentage of women in top editorial positions, we find a strong and positive correlation. Despite this, in nine out of ten markets, there are considerably more women working as journalists than there are women among the top editors; Looking more broadly at gender inequality in society and the percentage of women in top editorial positions, we find no meaningful correlation. Countries like Germany and South Korea that score well on the UN Gender Inequality Index have very few women among the top editors." (Key findings)
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"To understand the situation and examine what can be done to address it, we sent out a questionnaire to journalists in 16 countries in the region, asking them about the state of press freedom and the areas in which they felt their ability to work was being curtailed. We also asked them about sources
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of support and solidarity in their profession and asked what may be of assistance to them in the future. This report focused very much on the experience of working journalists and the threats that they directly identify. The journalists questioned spoke of coming under attack from politicians who discredit individual journalists and media outlets, launch vexatious lawsuits, and weaponise government advertising revenue to harm critical media and financially boost friendly outlets. There is also in many countries an outright state of media capture, where media outlets have been brought under direct or indirect government control. The region’s media landscape is also marked by rising job insecurity for journalists, along with increased polarisation in the media landscape. Outlets are characterised as being starkly pro- or anti-government and the journalists who work for them are also essentially made to pick a side." (Executive summary)
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