The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has launched a series of engaging visuals to promote fair gender representation of politicians in news coverage.
These visuals aim to remind journalists and trainers of the importance of balanced representation in a proactive and captivating way.
Credit: Gage Skidmore
With the use of humorous visuals, the IFJ’s“ “cheat sheets” offer essential journalistic guidelines and key information to assist journalists and media students in reporting on politics fairly and without bias.
They cover crucial aspects of journalism, including news framing, question formulation, illustration choices, and the intersectionality component.
One of the key principles highlighted in the cheat sheets is the “reversibility rule”, which encourages reporters to ask themselves whether they would pose the same question to a male politician as they would to a female one. If the answer is “no,” the question should be dropped.
Prepared by IFJ trainer Marie Palmer, these visuals are the result of the two-year Rewriting the Story project. This EU-funded initiative has worked to challenge gender bias in political reporting and has, among others, developed a training toolkit, journalistic guidelines and a network of journalism trainers equipped to teach fair, non-stereotypical political reporting techniques to journalists across Europe and beyond.
“These cheat sheets offer a great opportunity to learn about key issues through humor and relatable examples. They serve as a memorable way to understand how gender bias can negatively impact politicians and, ultimately, media audiences. We strongly encourage our trainers, as well as journalism educators across the world, to use them widely,” the IFJ said.