Suspilne and Espreso are among the first media outlets to introduce gender policy in their editorial offices. Mykola Typusiak and Anastasiia Hudyma shared their experiences at the workshop, “The Power of Equality: How Gender Equality Policy Changes the Ukrainian Media,” organized by the Women in Media NGO with assistance from International Media Support (IMS) as part of the Donbas Media Forum held in Kyiv on October 18-19. The event was moderated by Liza Kuzmenko, Head of the Women in Media NGO and a member of the Commission on Journalistic Ethics.
At the current rate of progress, it will take the world 134 years to achieve gender equality, projected for 2158 – approximately five generations from now. This was stated by Liza Kuzmenko, head of the Women in Media NGO and a member of the Journalistic Ethics Commission, who referred to data from the World Economic Forum (WEF) 2023.
According to the study Gender Balance in Decision-Making in Ukraine’s Media, creative professions within the journalistic community are predominantly occupied by women. They are forced to take on the responsibilities of multiple employees at once: writing texts, securing funding, and managing accounts. In terms of beneficial ownership, the majority are men. The survey revealed that in 38% of the newsrooms surveyed, the ultimate beneficiary of the media is a man.
In content pieces, women are often portrayed as spontaneous heroines or witnesses to events. When an expert comment is needed, it is more likely to be sought from men.
To prevent such an imbalance at the editorial level, adopting a gender policy is essential. The gender policy template was developed by Women in Media in collaboration with the Commission on Journalistic Ethics. We discussed the presentation of the policy in this article.
It is also worth mentioning the interview with Maryna Synhaivska, the deputy editor-in-chief of LB.ua, in which she emphasized that an editorial policy cannot exist without a gender policy.
Otar Dovzhenko, a media expert and creative director of the Lviv Media Forum, previously stated that a gender policy can serve as a hint, a guide for beginners, a framework, and an advantage for donors. More information can be found in this material.
During the workshop, Liza Kuzmenko reported that only 3% of newsrooms have policies related to women’s leadership, while 34% lack any formalized policies.
“Since 2005, which is actually 20 years, a wonderful law ensuring equal rights and opportunities for women and men has been in force. It states that the media can adopt codes of conduct, promoting self-regulation. This means that rather than the state imposing fines, we can establish what is ethical, outline it in our rules, and then adhere to it,” explains Liza Kuzmenko.
The new law “On Media” now includes penalties for discrimination. Previously, authorities could only issue an injunction and a warning for violations; now, offenders may face fines.
Media compliance with this standard is monitored by the National Television and Radio Broadcasting Council. If the National Council, as the media regulator, identifies a discriminatory statement in the media, it can first issue a warning, and in the case of a repeat violation, impose a fine. For television, fines range from 43,500 to 348,000 hryvnias, while for online editions, the range is from 43,500 to 67,000 hryvnias.
Not the form, but the essence
Espreso Marketing Director Mykola Typusiak explains that the team must understand that gender policy is not just about form, but about the essence – recognizing that women and men have equal rights and opportunities. He emphasized that it is important to implement such rules in a non-violent way.
“For Germans, rules are like laws that must not be broken. Ukrainians, on the other hand, tend to bypass or ignore rules, adhering only to what they truly believe. Understanding this trait can be key to successfully implementing a gender policy. Forced implementation tends to irritate Ukrainians,” says Mykola.
According to Typusiak, Espreso avoids gender stereotypes, uses feminatives, analyzes expert contributions, conducts training, and has published a book of reports titled “Women at War” about women in the defense forces.
The media outlet also draws attention to UNESCO’s gender-sensitive indicators.
Enhancing women’s visibility
Anastasiia Hudyma, head of the Department for Diversity, Inclusion, and Equal Opportunities at Suspilne, disagrees with the notion that the implementation of gender policy should be gentle.
“What isn’t written into KPIs is not always easily implemented. Allies won’t always be around,” Anastasiia believes.
The Suspilne team uses feminatives. If the speaker in the documentary refers to herself in the masculine gender, she is not interrupted; however, her title is indicated in the credits using feminine forms.
Additionally, Suspilne is monitoring the participation of women and men in its materials through the BBC’s “50:50” initiative. Journalists and editors input data into a special table, and at the end of the quarter or year, they can see the percentage of times men and women served as experts, as well as expert heroes and heroines.
Anastasiia Hudyma mentioned that Suspilne creates pieces aimed at increasing the visibility of various categories of women, including those from the security and defense sector, Roma women, and women with disabilities.
Public broadcasting has joined the UN Women’s initiative – WEPs (Women’s Empowerment Principles) – further confirming the company’s commitment to ensuring gender equality and empowering women.
They have also implemented PMI (public media indicators), a tool integrated into the administration console of news websites that allows users to input key data for each piece, including the gender of characters, subject, and geography. This approach helps analyze the content and identify which topics are covered insufficiently and which are addressed excessively. It plays an important role in ensuring a balance in news content, preventing an exclusive focus on crime news, which typically generates quick and consistently high viewership figures.
Additionally, Suspilne announced the development and implementation of a comprehensive Concept of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for Public Broadcasting.
Liza Kuzmenko, head of the Women in Media NGO, once again emphasized the importance of the gender policy as a key document.
Women in Media is always ready to provide the necessary information to editorial offices. If you want to implement a gender policy in your newsroom but don’t know where to start, please reach out to us at ngo.womeninmedia@gmail.com.