100 days: Innovating to Restore Unbiased Reporting on Gender Equality

How we’re shaping the relaunch of Women News Network (WNN), one of the internet’s original news websites reporting on women’s human rights, global gender equality, and policy through CUNY’s inaugural Entrepreneurial Journalism Creators Program. Subscribe now!

The Truth: reporting on women and “gender equality fatigue”

I’ll start this off by getting to the point: gender is a difficult reporting topic. Journalists covering global gender equality issues often straddle an invisible line of presenting stories meant to facilitate balanced, constructive conversation and addressing emotionally-charged elephant(s) in the room — pervasive historical gender inequalities, gender-based violence, patriarchal structures, and an absence of women’s voices.

As the author of several books that bring forward the voices of underrepresented women and as a journalist covering inequality, power structures, and global policy, I’ve witnessed what I call “gender equality fatigue.” This is a frustration that results when a person repeatedly hears accusatory language, angry rhetoric, and blame towards certain groups in society over historical inequalities (yep, even if they’re true.)

Our current cancel culture often finger-points, and subjects people to astute language, while amplifying indignation in the voices of writers, journalists, and media commentators discussing gender equality. This behavior’s tragedy is it creates more divisions and begets less crucial allyships needed to tackle persisting and pervasive inequalities. For journalists, tone and presentation matter deeply when covering these subjects.

One truth journalists cannot overlook: Much of the global gender equality conversation begins and is fueled by media organizations. As journalists our code of ethics means we’re expected to offer a balance of perspectives to our audiences by presenting facts and insights. Our approaches when presenting and discussing news stories about women impact policy-making, research, education, and civil society initiatives.

As referenced in my recent Media Lab Bayern report, despite reforms in equal opportunity employment, reproductive rights policies, and strides in government representation in the U.S. and Europe in the last 50 years, news reporting on women’s issues remains unbalanced — with women as minorities even when producing stories about the very circumstances affecting their lives:

• Overall: In 2021, Luba Kassova, co-founder and director of the international audience strategy consultancy AKAS Ltd, released her 2019 report, The Missing Perspectives of Women in News. She and her team analyzed 57 million articles, from across 12,000 publications in six countries — India, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, the U.K., and the U.S, nearly 2,300 academic articles, and over 200 database surveys. The team found systemic discrepancies in how women are represented in media and their involvement in the production of media.
• Reproductive issues: A 2014–2015 study of the top 12 U.S. media outlets found that women wrote just 37 percent of reproductive issue stories while men wrote 52 percent.
• Government and politics: According to the 2016 analysis, Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP) report, in Europe women represent only about a quarter of the persons heard from, read about, or seen in the news — a staggering 25 percent in radio, television, and newspaper mediums and 24 percent in online media and news-related tweets.
• Op-Ed contributions: Women at the four most widely circulated U.S.-based newspapers penned an average of 15 percent of guest-writer op-eds on international issues during 1996, 2006, and 2016, according to the Foreign Policy Institute.
• Media pay gaps: According to Women’s Media Center, pay gaps still persist along gender lines in newsrooms at the Associated Press, Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post, with men earning substantially more than women.

Women News Network: A (Reviving) Solution
For over a decade, Women News Network-WNN acted as a solution to disparities in representation by using the highest journalistic standards to report original news stories about women that critically examined global gender equality policy while elevating the voices of journalists in far-flung global regions. The site has served over 600 UN agencies and NGO affiliates, international offices of legislation, worldwide universities, and Schools of Law, as well as an engaged human rights and humanitarian-focused public at large.

At WNN, we never wanted to create an echo chamber, rather an inclusive platform providing news to anyone needing global women’s human rights and policy reports. We know we have been successful in our mission when we see diverse audiences use our content (women, men, high school and university students, researchers, diplomats, and policymakers).

Over the years we’ve received numerous awards, including:

• 2008: Every Human Has Rights (EHHR) Media Award via WNN Zambia staff journalist, Sally Chiwama
• 2011: Ladlii Media Awards for Best web writing for a WNN story on Dalit women (also known as India’s ‘untouchables) by WNN correspondent for Central India Shuriah Niazi, who have suffered severely under accusations of witchcraft in Chhattisgarh, rural India.
• 2011: Another WNN article (via Niazi) received The ELi Lilly / REACH MDR-TB Award for TB writing.

Despite being a leader in global news about women, we fell short of funding in 2017 and were unable to continue commissioning journalists. We froze our news platform to develop a solution. Now considered a legacy website, WNN articles continue to be cited in textbooks, policy documents, government reports, and research papers.

We also built a solid global network that is ready to support us in our relaunch. For years we have enjoyed partnerships with United Nations agencies, universities, global NGOs, and content partners to help distribute our original reporting. Our still-active Twitter handle, @womenadvocates enjoys a loyal and engaged following of 63K users while our Facebook page boasts over 15,000.

I joined CUNY’s inaugural Entrepreneurial Journalism Creators Program with a grant from Munich’s Media Lab Bayern to create a structured relaunch roadmap for WNN. The Program runs online for 100 days with a cohort of creative thinkers from around the world building out their own micro media ventures.

Surveying our media space: Does tone determine credibility?
WNN launched before notions of innovation processes in journalism were a “thing”. We never thought in the past to define our audiences, conduct surveys, or create audience personas because we saw significant engagement on social media channels, story citations, and invitations to join panels alongside government officials, diplomats, grassroots leaders, and academics. For us, that was good enough.

During the initial opportunity exploration phase (scientists refer to this as “hypothesis”), I decided to ask important questions via a research survey about potential audiences and supporters we may have overlooked or did not define in the past — especially to understand the news consumption space around gender equality and women’s issues. We’ve always known that the wrong tone could mean the beginning of the end of trust in our coverage, but was this still applicable with the changes in media offerings and approaches? At what point does a feminist tone get in the way of news credibility, for example? Do audiences prefer news websites with a more activist approach? Does tone actually undermine credibility? Once we reach our goal of greater than 1500 responses, we will have a sharper idea.

Our survey is still available for the taking! Our goal is >1500 responses and you can help us reach it by taking it here!

Key Insight: new direction with newsletter and podcast resurgence
If there is one insight gleaned from our 100-day journey that determined WNN’s new direction it is that static websites and blogs are a news relic of the internet's past. In recent decades, the ubiquitous use of mobile phones and social media morphed news consumption into new mediums that provided enhanced audience insight data to media companies and journalists. This changed our notions of audience engagement and ability to tailor hyper-niche media products to wanting consumers. Journalists can now specifically define and serve their audiences with in-demand coverage. A result is the resurgence in North America and Europe of the increasing value of both email newsletters and podcasts to reach niche audiences, grow subscription and sponsorship bases, and cultivate vibrant membership programs. Media industry research has highlighted a sharp increase in both newsletter and podcast production in recent years, both by ‘legacy’ print and newer digital media publishers.

Below are two insights from the Oxford University Reuters Institute 2020 Digital News Report:

• “Email newsletters once thought of as low-tech and unfashionable, are proving increasingly valuable to publishers looking to build strong direct relationships with audiences. Email can help build habit and loyalty, which is particularly important for new business models such as subscription and membership.” — Senior Researcher Nic Newman
• “The proportion using podcasts has grown significantly in the last year, though coronavirus lockdowns may have temporarily reversed this trend. Across countries, half of all respondents (50%) say that podcasts provide more depth and understanding than other types of media. Meanwhile, Spotify has become the number one destination for podcasts in a number of markets, overtaking Apple’s podcast app.”

These insights considered, we made the decision to fold our past verticals into two main for our upcoming newsletter (policy-focused reporting and one on freelancer-contributed global feature stories), and another crucial vertical, WNN Interviews, into a complete podcast of its own. We created prototypes of both so when we choose a newsletter provider and podcast platform, we can just build away!

Assessment of former verticals from our recent pitch deck.

New verticals and formats decided from our innovation process.

Timelines and factors to Relaunch
First, we have to decide where we plan to set up: Germany or the United States. This will determine our new legal structure as a viable company or NGO (in the past we were an NPO supported by primary donors). Second, we will decide on platforms to use (we basically have) and are deciding on the content launch schedule as well for our first few months, which will involve re-engaging with past journalists and partners for launch support. Each of these steps requires a solid project plan and project management. Who would have thought these were journalism skills? Well, folks, they are!

Stay tuned for more relaunch updates by subscribing here.