This isn’t just another report – it’s the largest study to date on persistent gender bias in Australian newsrooms.
Led by WLIA Fellow Professor Andrea Carson, this report analyses over 200,000 articles using cutting-edge machine-learning techniques to examine women’s voices in Australian news – both as news story creators and as expert sources.
The results?
While some progress has been made, there is a long shadow of gender bias. Women are still sidelined to less-visible pages, given fewer words, and disproportionately assigned to ‘soft news’ topics like entertainment and lifestyle. Meanwhile, men dominate coverage in high-impact areas such as politics, economics and foreign affairs.
The gap extends beyond just who’s writing the stories. On the other side of media coverage – the quoted experts, the people who are bestowed with authority in the media – the same old story persists. As in past reports, men dominate the quotes, and they tend to quote other men more often. Women are better at quoting their fellow women.
Shareable graphics
“The stories we see, the voices we consider
authoritative, and the narratives we embrace all
determine the future we build.”