UN Women holds Gender Responsive Media Workshop Evaluation and Experience Sharing Meeting with Milliyet Newspaper

UN Women organized a Gender Responsive Media Workshop Evaluation and Experience Sharing Meeting with Milliyet Newspaper. Held on July 29th in Istanbul, the meeting brought together a diverse group of media professionals, including editors, editors-in-chief, reporters, visual directors, and editor-in-chiefs from Milliyet Newspaper. The meeting aimed to reflect on and share insights gained from the Gender Responsive Media Workshop that took place on October 15, 2022. During the meeting, participants noted that the workshop significantly strengthened their capacities in producing visual and textual content aligned with their advocacy efforts.

Led by Prof. Dr. Nezih Orhon, the workshop dived deeper into the influence of media professionals and the content they produce on the broader audience that the news reaches. A total of 15 media professionals benefitted from the training organized within the scope of “Advancing Gender Equality and Women's Leadership in Political and Business Life Project" funded by Sweden through the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) and implemented by UN Women Türkiye.

UN Women Türkiye Program Specialist Duygu Arığ said: "Transforming discriminatory and sexist language is a necessity for equality. The media has a huge role in this transformation. As an agent of change, we are working with Milliyet Newspaper to transform unequal news language. We will continue our cooperation to ensure gender equality and implement gender-responsive corporate practices in the media."

Pınar Aktaş, Head of News at Milliyet Newspaper said: "Media is one of the most powerful tools for achieving gender equality. As the editorial staff of Milliyet newspaper, we have already participated in The Gender Responsive Media Workshop, which is a part of our three-year collaboration with UN Women Türkiye. At today's evaluation meeting, we had the opportunity to update ourselves on using a transformative and equal language as a newspaper. It is very important for us to reinforce the understanding of gender equality in all departments, to combat sexist language and to evaluate and monitor these efforts."

Sanem Arman, Editor-in-Chief of Milliyet Pazar said: "The current data on the visibility of women and men in social life, politics, academia and the media, presented as part of the Gender Responsive Media Training, enabled us to see the areas of inequality more strikingly. We were introduced to the newspaper coding system, which consists of many headings such as the language of the news, the center of the story, and the contribution of visuals to the news. We discussed the transformative effect of gender-responsive news language on the coverage of violence against women in the media with examples. We will continue to observe the contribution of eye-tracking analysis and data visualization in the content we will prepare in the future."

UN Women Türkiye developed an online gender-responsive media guide, designed for media professionals to implement gender-responsive practices. The guide also serves as a blueprint for other media organizations. “The Gender Responsive News Content Checklist" included in the media guide was shared with the participants during the workshop. The checklist allows media professionals to scrutinize their news content through aa gender equality lens prior to dissemination.