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Greece – (F9) Gender equality in media content

Score in short:

There are no specific rules on gender equality in reporting, and each journalist decides whether or not it is respected in reporting. In leading news media organisations, a culture of safeguarding gender equality in their content is lacking. This is reflected in the lack of rules regarding gender balance or parity in reporting, a phenomenon stemming from the lack of awareness that gender sensitivity in reporting is crucial in order to make media reflect upon the plurality of society’s voices.

Score in detail:

Greece did not exhibit any special efforts to address challenges regarding gender equalities in media content or promote the inclusion of diverse voices. There were no rules or codified practices observed, and no consideration was given to these aspects when assigning issues to report upon. In some cases, such as the one described by one of the journalists interviewed, the understanding in media organisations among journalists is that there are some topics more relevant for women than others:

There is no segregation or discrimination towards gender, age, or other factors as to how the [news] topics to be assigned are selected, or as to what it has to do with the fulfilment of the reports. On a personal and friendly level there is, in some cases, “conceding” of topics from a man to a woman, for example on a topic that’s about fashion or vice versa with a sports report. But that’s not because of a central decision and it’s not in any sense a rule.

For some interviewees in our research, gender was not considered important in who was selected to cover a story, while others argued that “the equality between men and women as to the conducting of the report has principally to do with its topic”. Therefore, we can assume that there is a complete lack of formal rules regarding gender balance in reporting and news content, because of the lack of an understanding that this is a problem in the first place.