20 Aug 2012 New resources for gender aware journalism

Red PAR was created some six years ago and brings together 188 Argentinean professional journalists who work with a gender perspective throughout the country. WACC played a role in the formation of the network and Dafne Sabanes Plou and Claudia Florentin, two WACC members and leaders of the WACC-Latin American Regional Association, were key figures in the creation of the work.

The current WACC Global president Dr Dennis Smith was also among those who supported the creation of Red PAR. The network organises national annual encounters with the next one taking place in the city of Mar del Plata from 14 to 16 of September 2012.

Interest in and commitment to non-sexist language in the media has continued to gain allies in Argentina and WACC partners have played a role in these efforts. As such, a recent project sought to provide training and resources for future journalists with support from WACC’s former programme Media Gender Justice.

The group Asociación Civil de la Azotea, in Mar del Plata, implemented a project to increase awareness of the impact of stereotypical and biased reporting on women. The project produced a manual of good practices which is being distributed to journalists’ unions, local media and schools of journalism. De la Azotea is a non-profit civil society association established in 2003 by a group of women and men committed to creating alternative media for people and groups marginalized from mainstream media.

A project implemented by the Asociación Civil Artemisa Noticias and funded by WACC in 2011 produced a documentary Políticas en los medios analysing the portrayal of female politicians in press, audio-visual, radio and digital media. The documentary was screened at public debates with communicators from national media across Argentina. Proposals emerging from the debates included the imperative for journalists to also seek the opinion of women experts for stories related to politics and economic issues, to address sexist language and to professionalise in-house codes of practice from a gender perspective

The manual was released during a public event organised by the local legislative body in Mar del Plata on 7 June 2012, the day of journalists in Argentina. Presenting the manual Marcela Gabioud, current member of WACC-Latin America’s Regional Association, indicated that taking into account the results of the last Gender Media Monitoring (GMMP www.whomakesthenews.org ) undertaken by WACC and its global network, it became “clear that there were no resources in schools of journalism to work with a gender perspective. Therefore this proposal aimed at providing a tool not only to those already working in the media but also to those who are training to work in it”.

Ms Gabioud, a member of Red-PAR sees journalism with a gender perspective as a more ethical and responsible practice. The manual, in Spanish, can be downloaded here…

At global level, in October 2012 WACC is planning to launch a Learning Resource Kit for Gender-Ethical Journalism and Media House Policy prepared in collaboration with the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ). This is yet another contribution on the part of WACC to non-sexist journalism everywhere.