Flanders neither boasts rules or guidelines specifically regarding the promotion of gender equality in media content, nor is there a legal framework ensuring this on either the Flemish or Belgian level. The official Flemish Code of Practice of the Council for Journalism only specifies that news reporting should not be stigmatising towards ethnicity, nationality, philosophy, sexual orientation, or gender, without further specifications or ramifications (RvdJ 2010b: §IV, point 27; for the English version, see RvdJ, 2010a). Public broadcaster VRT has gender quotas imposed and must have at least 40 per cent of all appearances on its radio and television stations be from women. However, this is not specified to news content per se, but rather to the entire output. VRT reached the quotas for 2019, but only over its different television brands. Its children’s channel performs very well (above the required quotas), while its main generalist channel is a bit below 40 per cent and the channel Canvas –bringing most information programmes – ends slightly above 30 per cent. However, private media does not have any such specific quotas, and this is also not actively researched by the Flemish media regulator or other governing bodies.
Most interviewed journalists, of which the majority were men, appeared to be at least aware of the ongoing criticism that women were underrepresented as actors (e.g., experts) when being interviewed in newspaper articles or television news pieces. However, none indicated the existence of or the need for explicit mechanisms to monitor and guarantee gender balance in news subjects. The commitment to increase the gender balance was of course there; however, most of these journalists noted that continuous time constraints in their daily jobs prevented them from spending too much time looking for female experts in a given field. As a result, they often relied on known and experienced media pundits – who turned out to be, in most cases, male. In a similar vein, some journalists expressed their dismay at the notion of “having women in their articles for the sake of it”. They stressed the fact that, while women were also often asked to contribute to articles, they would often decline to comment publicly on something outside their specialisation. Their male counterparts, however, were far more eager to do so. To counter this, the Flemish Community set up an expert database (Expertendatabank[i]), to promote the visibility of experts who are still underrepresented in the media.
Women’s media have a rich history in Flanders. There have been several weekly magazines aimed at women that still exist both online and offline. Notably, the one online-only Flemish news medium aimed specifically at women and minority groups, Charlie Magazine, ceased to exist towards the end of 2019 due to a lack of a sustainable business model, paying subscribers, and structured government funding.
