Summary

(Note: The report can be downloaded free of charge by WAN-IFRA members and non-members alike.)

WAN-IFRA first produced WINning Strategies in 2016 to serve as an inspiration to media companies contemplating how to improve gender equality within their organizations. A great deal has happened in this space in the two years thus. #Metoo swept through newsrooms across the globe, and movements for social change such as Times' Up have gained hold. The media industry increasingly recognizes that it must take a more proactive role to increase diversity within its leadership structures, as well as the content produced. Media organizations are starting to realize the moral and financial imperative to create safe working environments for all staff. This is all positive, and long overdue.

As an industry, the media continues to lag behind others when it comes to gender equality. Research released in early 2018 found that women only make up 17% of top management positions within the world's largest 100 media companies.

Existing research on the presence of women in the news itself – as subject matters or sources – is similarly unsettling. Findings from 2015 as part of the Global Media Monitoring Project, an initiative that tracks gender equality in the news over time, revealed that only 24% of news subjects are female. Distressingly, this figure has not shifted significantly in the 20-year span of the study.

WAN-IFRA is committed to helping to change these statistics. Our Women in News leadership development programme aims to equip women media professionals with the skills, strategies and support networks to take on greater leadership roles within their organisations. In parallel, we are working with media partners around the globe to sensitize media managers to the business and moral imperative of gender equality, while also providing practical tools to media organisations to improve their track record in gender equality. We have also committed ourselves to making concrete advances toward gender equality within our own governance and organizational structures, setting internal targets to significantly improve our own track record by 2021.

We hope that WINning Strategies continues to serve as a source of inspiration and discussion, as well as a reminder that it is possible to bring about the organizational and cultural change necessary to increase women's leadership and voices in the news. All it needs is your commitment.

> Download the report free of charge