Gender ethics in journalism

The World Association for Christian Communication (WACC) in partnership with the International Federation of Journalists has a unique resource kit to help build expertise in integrating gender ethics in their practice of professional journalism titled Learning Resource Kit for Gender-Ethical Journalism (2012) (http://www.whomakesthenews.org/).

The editor, Sarah Macharia points out in Issue 23 of the Media and Gender Monitor that, “a gender lens can reveal whether or not an event or process affects women and men, girls and boys in particular ways, thereby allowing reporters to uncover a possible gender angle that may well add a significant and striking dimension to the story. A gender lens can also facilitate broader and deeper insights into the range of events and issues covered by the media”.

Macharia further notes that it became increasingly clear to WACC while co-ordinating the Fourth Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP 2010) process that there exists an appreciable mass of media practitioners motivated to learn how to respond to the critique of gender bias in their output. This said in awareness of the structural constraints in the broader media operating environment that impede radical change.

In addition, it was also clear that the building blocks for gender-ethical media practice were already in place in the form of codes of ethics in which principles such as truth, accuracy, objectivity, balance, fairness and accountability are accepted as basic tenets of journalistic professional practice.

It is from this point of departure that the resource kit sets off, articulating the tenets through a gender lens, as a holistic, multi-dimensional understanding necessarily needs to be infused also with reflections about gender, or, how gender difference intersects with professional ethics. Excerpts from the kit, as well as the kit itself are featured in Issue 23 of the Media & Gender Monitor.