Tags containing: "women in media"

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion | Featured Post | Innovation

Getting the ratio right: How the BBC is tackling gender equity in its coverage

January 21, 2021 Nina Goswami, Creative Diversity Lead and journalist – BBC

“Women’s representation in the news has flatlined (if not reversed) in the 21st century.” That was one of the damning conclusions in the recent report The Missing Perspectives of Women in News by Luba Kassova.

Structural marginalization

The claim is drawn from many factors including analysis of online news publications from six countries – the U.K., U.S., Nigeria, India, South Africa, and Kenya. The report also cited that, in political coverage, men accounted for up to seven times more of the voices heard than women.

It cited from a separate report: “Given the deeply political nature of the Covid-19 crisis, women’s structural marginalization in the political leadership roles established in response to the crisis locks in the suppression of women’s voices in the story.”

Some of the research used was conducted by Media Ecosystems Analysis Group, which wrote, for a study conducted between 1 March and 15 April 2020, that “when looking at non-coronavirus stories, gender equality metrics tend to be better than 2019 levels.”

Taking control

So, what are journalists doing differently for non-Covid stories? It comes down to control. And we’ve made control a core principle of the BBC’s 50:50 Project, which uses data to increase the number of women contributors on content. Control in this context means a journalist or content-maker’s ability to choose the people they include in their article, TV, or radio news piece.

For example, when the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson makes an announcement around the latest coronavirus restrictions, a journalist would be compelled to include a statement from him. He is intrinsic to the storytelling. Therefore, he’s not an element of the news item that can be controlled. However, sourcing the business owner impacted by the new announcement is in the power of the journalist to control.

This is what 50:50 concentrates on. It looks to create change by identifying the voices that are in the power of the journalist and content-maker to influence, and it is working to increase women’s representation at the BBC.

Data effects change

Understanding what content-makers can control has required the BBC to subtly change its thinking. BBC News presenter Ros Atkins, who started 50:50 in 2017, talks of how he wanted to move the BBC from being in a “constant state of trying” to increase women’s representation to actually doing it.

His approach was simple: Use data to effect change.

“We ask content creators to count each of the contributors in their work that they control and try to reach 50% women over a month. Every person who counts, counts as one. That makes the data collection very simple,” explained Atkins.

In the earlier Boris Johnson example, this would mean the British Prime Minister would not count but the business owner would. And counting people once, no matter how many times they appear in a piece, means the monitoring can be done quickly.

Atkins continued: “The approach means you can measure your work as you produce it, when it is still fresh in your mind. That gives the data the best chance to influence your thinking and your actions.”

Find new voices

The golden rule of 50:50 is that the best contributor always takes part. Atkins explains that it is not a quota system. Rather, “It is an opportunity to identify where representation may be lacking and then for content-makers to go out and see if they can find new voices to enrich their content, while improving the output’s gender balance.”

There are more than 650 teams across the BBC taking part in 50:50. That means not just the news, but also sports, factual and entertainment are seeking out new voices themselves. To support their search there is also a central expert database with more than 1,500 women contributors available to the content teams.

Implementing these actions – using data to effect change, measure what you control and widening the pool of voices – has made a tangible impact at the BBC – and the audience has noticed. A survey of 2,000 BBC online users found that 39% had noticed a shift toward more women contributors and 32% of women aged 25 to 34 are now consuming more content as a result.

The impact

In March 2020, as the world went into lockdown, two-thirds of BBC teams that submitted data reached 50% women representation. This is up from a third when they joined the project.

50:50 Project Lead Lara Joannides, who spearheads the initiative inside the BBC, had feared that the challenges of coronavirus could have a detrimental impact on representation because 50:50 is a voluntary scheme, and the Corporation moved down to critical services. Despite this, the challenge results saw a nine percentage point increase on the previous year.

“The determination of BBC colleagues to make change and the conditions created by the pandemic have resulted in a really positive shift,” said Joannides. “We’re confident that while there is still a way to go, we’ll be able to maintain and improve on these figures going forward.”

The Covid effect

In more recent months, the BBC wanted to better understand the impact Covid-19 may have had on the representation initiative. So, the BBC took more than 2,500 snapshots of the gender balance on its programmes, online content, and events across a six-month period. Between June and November last year, the BBC took 2,563 snapshots, with 1,219 (48%) reaching 50% women contributors. During the same period in 2019, we took 2,528 snapshots and 988 (39%) reached the 50%. As mentioned, that represented a nine percentage point increase on the same period in the previous year.

For Director of BBC News Fran Unsworth, a key factor behind increasing women’s representation has been the removal of barriers in the news making process that existed before the pandemic. “We’ve all embraced new ways of working this year. One definite benefit is that we’ve had a wider range of guests on air,” she said.

Such a theory is supported by the content-makers themselves including Rachel Foley, Senior Journalist and 50:50 Lead for the BBC News Channel. “There haven’t been many upsides to Covid-19. But one is that it appears to have made it easier for women to appear on air,” said Foley. “I’ve noticed more female contributors are able to speak to us live on the BBC News Channel since the pandemic began because they can do so from their own homes using apps like Zoom or Skype.”

Dr. Linda Bauld, professor of public health at the University of Edinburgh and a regular contributor on BBC News programmes, is one such example. “Not having to go anywhere has been absolutely brilliant,” she explained.

“It’s just made it much more possible for me to fit it in with my family responsibilities as well as my working life. It’s now not unusual for me to do TV or radio interviews before my youngest goes to school in the morning. I’d not been able to easily do that before.”

Collaboration now

The Kassova Report may see the women’s perspective as missing overall however, it also points to solutions. In fact, the report cited 50:50 as one of them. It points out how BBC News achieved “a wave of change in a short space of time against all odds and despite the numerous societal, cultural and systemic barriers that stand in their way.”

Since launch, more than 75 organizations across 22 countries have begun to do so as well by using 50:50 to monitor their content and communications to reach gender balance. In October, the BBC’s Director-General Tim Davie invited more organizations to join the 50:50 partners network saying that it is “only together we can deliver positive change.”

His invitation to join 50:50 remains open.

50:50 is simple solution to increasing women’s voices on content but it is an effective one. It cannot fix a company’s workforce inequalities but it can act as a tool in a its diversity and inclusion armory.

I truly believe that the more of us embracing the 50:50 way the more likely we will be that, one day, we will read a report on gender representation that is not about the absence of women’s voices but the inclusion of them – loud and clear.

About the author

Nina Goswami is the BBC’s Creative Diversity Lead and is spearheading initiatives to support the Corporation’s aspiration that its on-air representation reflects society. Nina is also a journalist and, before her current post, was a BBC News senior producer. She has worked in media her whole professional career including The Sunday Times and The Sunday Telegraph.

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion | Industry-Research

Female representation in filmmaking inches upwards

January 11, 2021 Rande Price, Research VP – DCN

Women in the media and entertainment industry are making slow but steady progress in closing Hollywood’s gender gap. According to the Celluloid Ceiling Report, women working behind the scenes in the industry’s top 100 films increased from 20% in 2019 to 21% as representation in the top 250 films grew from 21% to 23%. The Celluloid Ceiling Report is produced by the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University. It is one of the industry’s most comprehensive study of women’s employment in film and this is its 23^rd year of reporting.

Key findings:

Women in the top 100 grossing films:
- Women accounted for 16% of directors in 2020, up from 12% in 2019.
- Women did best as producers (28%), followed by executive producers (21%), editors (18%), directors (16%), writers (12%), and cinematographers (3%). Important to know, female writers (12%) declined by 8 percentage points from 2019.
Women in the top 250 grossing films:
- Women comprised 18% of directors working in 2020, up from 13% in 2019.
Women accounted for 30% of all producers, 22% of all editors, 21% of all executive producers, 17% of all writers and 6% of all cinematographers.

While there is progress in the number of women working in movies, there is still a long way to go to close this industry’s gender gap.

Of the top 250 grossing films in 2020:

94% did not employ a female cinematographer,
80% did not employ a female director,
73% did not employ a female writer,
72% did not employ a female editor, and
41% did not employ a female executive producer.

Females champion one another

The study also found that films with at least one female director are much more likely to hire women to be editors, cinematographers, and other behind-the-scenes jobs. In fact, of films with female directors, 53% of the writers and 39% of the editors are also female. In comparison, only 8% of the writers and 18% of the editors are women in movies with male directors.

Both 2019 and 2020 registered growth in women working in films, however, there is still a large imbalance of females employed in this industry compared to men. In fact, a full 80% of today’s top films do not have female representation at the highest level. Unfortunately, more than two-thirds of films (67%) employ 0 to 4 women in the roles mentioned above, while 5% of films employ 0 to 4 men in those jobs. It is important to highlight the underemployment of women in films and the need for studios to hire more women in significant roles. It is time to ensure a gender balance in the entertainment business and to make certain more women are involved in the strategic decision-making process of the industry.

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion | Perspectives

Six fearless female executives weigh in on their greatest challenges and opportunities

July 31, 2017 Jennifer Bassett, Managing Editor—Outbrain

If you haven’t heard already, more than 40 years after women entered the workplace, we’re still having trouble climbing the ladder. The percentage of female chief executives of Fortune 500 companies only recently passed six percent. Meanwhile, some of the biggest headlines to come from the tech space lately are not about positive earnings, but rather a culture of sexual harassment. And the issue isn’t just regulated to the tech industry. Last year, 54% of the women surveyed in the advertising industry by the 4A’s also reported that they experienced sexual harassment at work.

I spoke to five talented and successful women leaders in advertising and tech to get their opinions on some of the greatest challenges and opportunities for women in their field right now. Here are some of their insightful – and inspiring – words.

1. Yao Huang, Founder, The Hatchery

There is a rising tide of opportunity to change the way things are. There is a swell of activism, unrest, and willingness to do something if there was leadership that showed the way to results. Words are hollow. Actions are deep. I’m not saying people are not doing anything, I’m saying it’s not actionable enough. For example, we’ve been talking about the pay gap for decades. Half the population should have the leverage to change that. There is a need for a united front at tables of decision making and negotiation. Around a shared vision of going forward by saying YES. Yes to helping your coworker up. Yes to mentoring. Yes to giving another woman an opportunity. Yes to support and organizations that are making moves forward. How does half the population not have a voice with votes? How does 80% of consumer spending power not have a voice in products and the companies that make them? How is there still sexual harassment at work? And bias to women for funding? Leadership needs to rise to unify around people powerful enough to rally a gender together. The challenge is finding people willing to step all the way up. Not just enough for good PR.

2. Anita Schillhorn van Veen, Founding Partner, Frame Strategy Co

Wonder Woman has just blown up the box office. The Fearless Girl statue (and the lady creative team behind it) just slayed at Cannes. And as tough as the last American election was, we can’t forget that a woman won the popular vote.

On the flip side, Uber is getting decimated in large part because of its internal misogyny. And the latest attempt at a health care bill, written solely by men, does not mention women at all.

We’re seeing the juxtaposition of women’s power and powerlessness everywhere we look. We need women to be role models, and we also need women behind the scenes to build a culture of inclusivity.

Advertising is one of the myriad media that seed culture. One of the reasons I’m in this industry is because we have the opportunity to create narratives and experiences that can make a difference.

I’m a fan of the Bechdel rule for movies: at least two women talk to each other about something other than a man. This rule calls attention to gender inequality in the film industry, and many dedicated viewers compile lists of films that comply and don’t. The more films that follow the Bechdel rule, the more women are represented as fleshed out human beings and not as stereotype.

I want this rule to hold true for every cultural artifact, including advertising. Data tells us that women hold much of the purchasing power in categories traditionally considered “masculine,” like automotive, financial services, electronics. The stories we tell as advertisers need to reflect the power that women have in society.

The Bechdel rule can also hold true for leadership. The token woman isn’t good enough anymore. Having one woman at the helm isn’t a guarantee for more inclusive storytelling, or a more compassionate or collaborative work environment. It takes networks of women to champion each other and grow a non-patriarchal perspective.

And I must caveat, the Bechdel rule should also be applied to people of color. We’ve seen acquittal after acquittal after acquittal of police who have shot black boys and men. ICE agents are deporting plenty of Latina mothers and even a boy on his way to prom. Partially to blame is a media landscape that does little to tell human stories by and about people of color. In advertising we must examine the stories we tell to make sure we are telling stories that aren’t perpetuating the stereotypes. We must have people in power that can champion diverse perspectives – and not just one lonely black or brown face in the group office photo, but enough to support and encourage each other. Every win is a door opening a little wider for more women and more women’s stories. We have a great opportunity to build on it.

3. Rhea Hanges, Creative Director, Periscope

As simple as it sounds, I would like to see more focus on women as great talent. Lately, there’s been so much conversation about women and diversity, that it has started to burn me out a little bit. I want to see less talk and more action. Good news, I have been noticing a positive shift recently. I now see agencies wanting to bring in different types of creative talent on different types of projects, not because they are women but to get the best kind of breakthrough thinking. For me, this is the big opportunity for smart, diverse talent proving their value simply through great work. This shift comes from a whole new crew of amazing women being groomed by great organizations like SheSays, proving there’s an undeniable wealth of talent out there right now. My hope is the conversation will continue to shift from who you are to the incredible work you’re doing.

4. Stephanie Himoff, Northern Europe Managing Director, Outbrain

While I’m still always surprised by how few women there are in senior roles in tech and advertising, what I find promising is that we’re making an effort to shift how we think about global gender issues and the subjects of gender disparity and identity. On one level, as evidenced at Cannes this year, we’ve become more aware of the influence we have on culture and we’re taking more responsibility for what we create. On another level, we’re addressing organizational gaps, namely the small (but increasing!) amount of women in leadership roles within the industry. The fact that we’re talking about these issues demonstrates to me that there continues to be positive movement in our industry – though we still have a ways to go.

5. Vanessa Romann, Executive Strategy Director, Havas

We are moving from a physical hours game to a digital access game. This has allowed us to look beyond the consecutive 10 hour work day and into a model of looking at the day as 24 hours where you can ebb and flow between work and life. They feed each other. I find this particularly important for women who know what it means to be in a dual working household. I believe this change in paradigm is lending itself to a huge shift in opportunities for women. They are not as fearful to take on new roles, bigger roles, with more responsibility—if they can work in the way they want to.

Workplaces are also being more feminized—skills like empathy, supportiveness, and collaboration are the attributes shaping many thriving company cultures today. It’s giving women the chance to unmask their feminine qualities without having to fit into the traditional corporate structure.

Our industry had always been ahead of its time. The only thing that stands in the way of our industry’s progress is fear and insecurity. When we can embrace our individuality and bring those gifts to our work, our people and our business, we can contribute to a larger cultural conversation.

6. Sarita Bhatt, Global Head of Digital Marketing, Sonos

Perhaps one of the greatest challenges is overcoming the usual status quo – and actually be given the chance to lead. Due to unconscious bias, this opportunity is often harder for women to grab. But once you, as a woman, cross that chasm – after repeatedly proving to have the knowledge and experience required – the opportunities to grow and build future teams, leaders, products, and services that are awesome and innovative are endless … and that’s where it gets exciting in tech.

Jennifer Bassett (@Jabers) is Outbrain’s Managing Editor. She has 10+ years of experience in the content strategy and editorial space. She began her career as a book editor and has consulted for top agencies, non-profits, and media companies including Memorial Sloan Kettering, Havas Worldwide New York, and Interbrand. When she’s not talking content, she’s playing music with her bands The Missing Footage and The Living Kills. You can read more of her writing at Outbrain.com and jennifer-bassett.com.

Innovation

AOL and Girls Who Code Partner to Make Cambio #BuiltByGirls

August 13, 2014 Michelle Manafy, Editorial Director – DCN

Reshma Saujani, founder of Girls Who Code has made inspiration her day job at the nonprofit organization she founded to inspire, educate and equip girls with the computing skills to pursue 21^st century opportunities. And her work, and mission, is getting some “traditional” brands to take notice.

When Mattel wanted to create an entrepreneur Barbie with street cred, one of the women they turned to was Saujani. Susan Lyne, CEO of AOL’s Brand Group and Girls Who Code advisor also turned to Saujani when she wanted to create a site built by girls for girls.

The inspired connection between Lyne and Saujani led to AOL offering summer internships to five Girls Who Code alumnae. These young women are playing a fundamental role in the re-launch of AOL’s millennial-focused pop-culture site, Cambio (coming this Fall).

“Part of Reshma’s program is to build something you care about and present it. She focuses on what you can build if you learn to code, which is exactly the right focus.” During their internship, the girls will certainly do a lot of coding, but they are also helping to shape the Cambio brand’s editorial direction and building new mobile-first products.

Lyne been impressed with the impact the interns are making—including making the content “multifaceted like they are,” which includes an affinity for celebrity news (the current focus of Cambio’s content), but also “about issues that are really important them whether it’s a crush, weight, family relationships or world peace.”

The interns have also developed an inspirational meme generator and a contributor platform so that they—and many more girls like them—can participate in the site. “I love the idea of building because it can mean many different things,” says Lyne. “Just the idea of creating, not just serving or enabling. Doing the creating themselves is incredibly empowering.”Lyne was also pleased to see how the larger AOL team welcomed the Girls Who Code interns, “the minute we announced the program, I can’t tell you how many engineers raised their hands, but also people in sales, designers, editors…everyone wanted to find a way to help these girls have a fantastic summer.” They’ve been privy to sessions on advertising, analytics, privacy, computer security and more.

Given the fact that three of the five top positions at AOL are held by women, it isn’t surprising that this is an organization supportive of young women’s professional development. “I think it all starts with Tim,” says Lyne of the company’s CEO and Chairman. “He made it a goal to have three women on the board because there’s research that demonstrates that companies with three or more women on the board perform better. He was looking for whatever will give us an edge and having strong women is part of that.”

Building a structure that supports women internally is important. But perhaps even more so is spreading the #BuiltByGirls message through initiatives like these, where young women see that the products they use every day are actually built by girls, in the hope that it changes their perception of computer science.

And, as Lyne points out, “Media companies like ours reach many millions of people and we impact all kids of attitudes. It is important that we positively impact the way young women think about their possibilities going forward, and even impact the way technology and an industry evolves. This is an opportunity…and a responsibility.”