Counting women in the newspapers is possible, and soon mandatory

MP Céline Calvez.

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• Deputy Céline Calvez makes her report on the place of women in the media this Wednesday, September 9.

• Among 26 recommendations, the deputy wants to set up a bonus system for all companies equipped with tools "for counting and measuring the place of women both in terms of organizations and content".

  
  

Will we soon see real-time counters appear in the editorial staff, indicating the proportion of women in the pages of newspapers?

It is the wish in any case of the deputy Céline Calvez, who submits this Wednesday a report on the place of women during confinement.

The document from the elected LREM, commissioned at the start of confinement by the former Secretary of State for Women's Rights Marlène Schiappa, is teeming with data specially collected for her mission, sometimes already made public.

Among the new data, a study by the women's rights service (a service attached to the government), which observed the front pages of seven newspapers in the national daily press (

,

,

,

,

,

,

) from March 1 to May 31, 2020. The study relates to the photos and the text of one, and a more precise focus of one week (from March 30 to April 4) also analyzed the debates pages and the presence of experts within all the pages.

The results of the study are not very glorious.

When it comes to photos, there are 83% of male personalities in one, against 17% of women.

Only

and

exceed 20% (with 25% and 23% respectively of images of female personalities).

During these 13 weeks, 74% of forums were signed by men.

stands out with 31% of women in debate pages, closely followed by

(30%).

The test week brought out only 24% of expert women.

[See details below]

Tools to count

To counter this phenomenon, the report of the deputy Céline Calvez recommends to regularly count the proportion of women in the columns of the newspapers, to trigger an "awareness".

And therefore to be inspired by experimental methods developed by certain pioneer titles.

Some media already count: this is the case of O

, for example, with its barometer;

des

, which regularly screen their site, or the newspaper

, which collects a great deal of data every three months.

“Making these figures public is not just a matter of transparency.

It is also a way of giving ourselves an obligation of result to rebalance the place of women and men in our columns ”wrote the evening daily last July.

The Paritometer, much more than a gadget

But the tool that appeals the most to the member is called the Paritometer.

It was developed by the Swiss newspaper

.

A program scours the site every half hour, spotting the names of men and women and turning them into percentages.

From these data, two colleagues from the newspaper came up with the idea of ​​a “gadget that attracts onlookers”: a graphic in wood and metal with an old-fashioned switch, to show the share of women in the editorial staff. real time.

The idea can of course be broken down by section, each service then being able to emulate the others.

#DIY Our “physical” parity barometer, cobbled together by @palrogg and @cesargreppin: mentions of names of women on @letemps, compared to the total of people mentioned.

A little depressing, we must admit… pic.twitter.com/4ENo76YZkN

- Le Temps Data (@LeTemps_Data) June 28, 2019

Lack of know-how

Regular counting is useful in normal times.

This becomes particularly important in times of crisis, when disrupted habits also cause the rate of women to drop at the same time.

Counting is also a prerequisite for progress, to gain reputation among its readers, to diversify the readership.

But counting is not always easy: editorial staff are subject to economic imperatives, and journalists are always short of time.

There is also, notes Céline Calvez, a problem of know-how: "We must encourage the public authorities to develop these solutions and ensure that the media have the means to count", notes the deputy.

Bonus Malus

To help the media, and while the figures have not changed, or so little for more than ten years, the report recommends to financially encourage companies, in the form of a bonus system to be deducted from the sum of money that the state wants to pay to the media, as part of the recovery plan linked to the coronavirus.

400 million euros were announced on August 27, a tidy sum that the member does not want to grant unconditionally. 

Companies that respect equal pay, equip themselves with tools to count the presence of men and women in their content and who train their teams on these issues, could receive a bonus.

Conversely, the media which do not respect equal pay, yet enshrined in law since 1983, would be penalized with a penalty.

"It is intolerable that we can invest in entire sections of our economy while economic players do not respect this minimum", laments the elected representative of Hauts-de-Seine.

Respond to "the needs of society"

As the aid from the recovery plan is spread over two years, the bonus-malus system granted in the first year could become a

condition in

the second year, in order to give companies a little time to adapt.

Then charge to the new elected officials to perpetuate this system, by transforming the permanent aid to the press, which represents a sacred sum (217 million euros in 2019).

For the member, the situation between on the one hand the audiovisual media increasingly controlled by the Superior Audiovisual Council, and on the other a written press which is not at all subject to these constraints, cannot last longer.

“Today when we have obtained an aid, it is an invaluable help,” she said.

We must be able to reexplore these aids in the light of the needs of society ”.

Culture

Member of Parliament Céline Calvez wants to condition aid to the press on respect for equality between women and men

Details

The study of the women's rights service is generally consistent with previous studies carried out on the subject.

A study by the Decoders section carried out in 2015 on four major French press titles (Le Parisien, Le Figaro, Liberation and Le Monde) found only 14.2% of women in one, whether in a photo or named in a title. .

A large study conducted every five years in 114 countries, called the Global Media Monitoring Project, noted that same year that women represented 23% of the people mentioned in the news of eight French dailies.

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