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As much as many things have changed in global news media, some things remain the same. The Global Media Monitoring Project 2025 report, supported by UN Women and the UN Correspondents Association, released earlier this month contained some surprising results. Apparently, the status quo of gross underrepresentation and misrepresentation of women in media content has persisted since the report first came out in 1995. The report monitors gender equality in news media across 160 countries, and is released every five years. After a slow and steady rise in women’s share of visibility and voice in news, progress began flatlining in 2010 and has remained so until today, with little change. In 1995, women were seen, heard or spoken about in 17 percent of the total content in print and broadcast; in 2025, the figure is only 26 percent, a nine-point change in 30 years, with a two-point increase from 2020 to 2025. However, women are marginally more likely to be featured in stories published online on websites dedicated to news.

The region that is closest to parity in women being subjects and sources as men in the news media is North America, followed by the Pacific, Europe, and Latin America, while the lowest are Asia and the Middle East with just 19 percent of the persons seen, heard or spoken about in the news are women in both regions. This is not a reflection of women’s role and progress in society across the different countries, but a reflection of the media’s underrepresentation and misrepresentation of women. The media plays a crucial role in shaping public perception, often perpetuating gender stereotypes and biases that hinder women’s progress. With women being barely seen or heard in the news, it gives the impression that women are unavailable, unqualified, or unimportant to be covered.

Women’s comparative presence in the core topics of politics and the economy rose only two points and one point, respectively, between 2020 and 2025, and rose six points in science and health stories after the slump in the 2020 pandemic era when women were displaced from prominence in this topic. However, women’s share of subjects and sources declined four points in social and legal news and three points in crime and violence news. Furthermore, despite its prevalence, gender-based violence barely makes the news at all. Various forms of GBV offline and online are featured in less than two out of every 100 news articles worldwide, but both men and women are fairly equal in representation as source and subject.  However, GBV stories are more likely to make it to online news than to print, radio and TV news combined. Men continue to dominate newsroom reporting overall, but the study found that women are slightly more likely than men to report on gender-based violence. 

Men dominate newsroom reporting.

Maha Akeel

Similar findings were highlighted in a report by CARE International on women in conflict zones. The report showed that while media coverage about conflict increased more than sixfold between 2013 and 2023, only 5 percent of the coverage focused on women’s experiences in war, and only 0.04 percent of articles published about armed conflict in that period mention women’s contributions as leaders. In addition to being half of every community and central caretakers of families taking on added responsibilities during conflicts, women play an important role as advocates for peace, peacekeepers, relief workers and mediators; roles that do not get much attention from the media.

The GMMP 2025 report shows that media’s recognition of women’s expertise is still lacking after three decades at less than 25 percent despite the strides women have made in the various professions and as leaders. However, media representation of women as ordinary people giving their opinion or personal experience has risen sharply by nine points in 10 years. Meanwhile, women journalists in traditional media have risen from 28 percent in 1995 to 41 percent in 2025 and in online news from 25 percent in 2015 to 43 percent in 2025, which is significant given the decline in importance of traditional media and the rise of online media.

The historical pattern remains that women reporters are much more likely to select female news subjects than their male counterparts, with a gap of five to six points across the 30-year period. Although this suggests that having more female journalists improves the chances of more stories about women, it is most often the decision-makers in the news industry who determine content, and they remain mostly men. The Reuters Institute analyzes annually the gender breakdown of top editors in a sample of 240 major online and offline news outlets in 12 different markets across five continents. In 2025, it found that only 27 percent of the 171 top editors across the 240 brands covered are women, even though, on average, 40 percent of journalists in the 12 markets are women. This is a small increase from 2024, when the figure was 24 percent across the same markets. 

Media content reflects society.

Maha Akeel

In ºÚÁÏÉçÇø, there has been considerable progress for women in leadership positions in the media, including as CEO and top editors, directors, and producers, as well as more journalists — a far cry from my research 20 years ago that found that women represented less than 8 percent of the total employees in newspapers and around 5 percent of employees in radio and television, with no women in administration, production and technical fields. With Vision 2030, more women are now featured in leadership and positive roles reflecting the progress they achieved in various sectors, although some stereotyping and biased reporting persists.

In 2015, I participated in the launch of the GMMP 2015 report at the UN headquarters in Geneva as director of communications at the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. Following that, I pushed for adopting a resolution on empowering women in and through the media at the OIC Information Ministers’ Conference in Jeddah in 2016 under the chairmanship of ºÚÁÏÉçÇø. Although there was huge support to the resolution, including establishing a Women Observatory to monitor women’s roles and as subjects in the media, not much has been achieved in implementing it despite organizing several workshops and meetings.

Media leaders and policymakers in governments need to commit to making specific targets to achieve gender parity in newsrooms and in content as a matter of priority for the benefit of society and economic prosperity. The media content reflects society. If women’s empowerment and gender justice is to be achieved, it should be seen and heard.

• Maha Akeel is a Saudi expert in communications, social development and international relations. She is a member of the UN’s Senior Women Talent Pipeline.

X: @MahaAkeel1