The IFJ-led, EU-funded Rewriting the story project concluded its second “training of trainers” session in Zagreb, Croatia, with journalists from across Europe, on 4 June. The newly trained trainers will now be responsible for carrying out their own national training using their new skills and the project’s newly developed kit of training modules.
“Mentioning the family status of a female politician automatically makes a news story fall into the category of gender bias if there is nothing in the story to justify mentioning that condition,” said the trainer of the FIP Marie Palmer as she wraps up the second day of her journalist training session on portraying politicians through a gender lens in Zagreb, Croatia.
Working with front-line journalists, media managers, journalists’ unions and associations, gender experts, media self-regulatory bodies, women active in political life, academics and, above all, the next generation of media professionals means, the Rewriting history The project aims to initiate reforms in European media culture, policies and newsroom processes that improve understanding and professional practices regarding the gender representation of women and men in political and public life.
The project concluded its second phase of activities with the development of tailored training modules and two ‘training of trainers’ sessions held respectively in Cyprus on 28 and 31 May and Zagreb, Croatia on 2 and June 4. The project brought together members of FIP affiliates in the EU.
The Union of Journalists of Cyprus and the Union of Journalists of Croatiatwo FIP affiliates, hosted each respective event, as associate partners of the project.
“These training sessions have been useful in providing future coaches with specific tools to train others,” said Nisrine Salameh, FIP international manager who is coordinating the entire project. “This project is an opportunity for FIP affiliates to create internal training support that can be used in the future to strengthen the capacities of union members to report on political news from a gender perspective. We hope to train 400 journalists across the European Union by June 2024.
One of the most important tools introduced to the students was the reversibility rule, whereby reporters should only ask questions of female politicians that they would ask their male counterparts.
“This rule is easy to use and an excellent tool to combat gender stereotyping in the news,” said FIP gender expert Pamela Morinière. “He is confident that this training can make a difference in political reporting by strengthening the ethics of journalists and I hope that many other journalism training centers and schools will make use of our training modules.”
The training modules are made up of six key components related to policy reporting from a gender perspective and will be available in the coming weeks, free of charge, to all journalist trainers worldwide.
The EU-funded project is a consortium led by FIP including its affiliates in Croatia (Croatian Union of Journalists) and Cyprus (Cyprus Union of Journalists), as well as key partners, the University of Padua i COPEAM (Conference of Audiovisual Operators of the Mediterranean), to offer a two-year program aimed at helping journalists, media students and public broadcasters develop their political reporting with gender lens skills and build a newsroom culture of equality of gender
Read more about the project here.
