Women are under-represented as sources in Danish news media, although independent studies show a different ratio of male and female sources. One study finds an increase in the number of female news sources in the average week from 1999 to 2012, from 16 per cent to 22 per cent (Willig et al., 2015), while the 2015 Who Makes the News Danish country report found 25 per cent of female sources at the time of study. This study also found that female journalists produced only 32 per cent of the news at the time (Jørndrup & Bentsen, 2015).
Despite these differences, only a few news media organisations have had an editorial focus on gender sensitivity in media content. Of these, the two newspapers Information and Politiken have both tried – but failed – to secure more equality in their media content, while the television programme Deadline on DR 2 has had more success including more women as guests in the programme. Several of the interviewees, however, stated that this has received an increased focus in the newsroom within internal editorial debates. Some also stated that they have taken measures to count the use of sources to secure a more balanced use.
