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Concerns Over Visibility, Gender Equity and Diversity at BBC Arabic World Service Concerns over Visibility, Gender Equity and Diversity at BBC Arabic World Service Concerns over Gender Equality and Diversity on BBC Arabic Journalism Shows By Iqbal Tamimi Director of Arab Women Media Watch Centre in the UK Email: [email protected] Bristol-UK Iqbal Tamimi Page 1 Concerns over Visibility, Gender Equity and Diversity at BBC Arabic World Service Concerns over Gender Equality and Diversity on BBC Arabic Journalism Shows-------------------------Page Content---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------2 Abstract--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------3 Key Words-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------3 Introduction---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------4 Women’s credibility in the news --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------5 Arab women journalists on Arab news channels------------------------------------------------------------------------6 Launch of BBC World Arabic Television Service---------------------------------------------------------------------11 BBC Diversity Strategy 2011-15-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------11 BBC Arabic World Service: Gender Equity Concerns---------------------------------------------------------------14 Missing Arab women journalists from BBC shows-------------------------------------------------------------------16 The effect of limited resources on the quality of the content---------------------------------------------------------18 The Content of the ‘7 Days’ show-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------26 Conclusions--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------27 Recommendations------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------29 Tables and charts-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------30 References----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------40 Iqbal Tamimi Page 2 Concerns over Visibility, Gender Equity and Diversity at BBC Arabic World Service Abstract The media plays a huge role in dialogue between societies and limitations of media content have often been linked to women’s under-representation and their lack of power within the media industry. This case-based study is focussing on media ethics and practice to highlight the importance of gender equality and its impact on social, cultural and political issues and understanding between societies. Over the past 20 years, most television channels continued to rely on men as experts on politics, media and economics, while women are more likely to be featured as victims in stories about accidents, natural disasters, domestic violence or playing secondary roles as assistants of men, and rarely portrayed as professionals who have skills and expertise in the news making or the fact that they represent 50 per cent of their societies. In this monitoring study I will be focussing on BBC Arabic Service application of professional standards regarding gender equity, balance and diversity to shed some light on the amount of visibility it has offered Arab women journalists. My argument lies in the assumption that Arabic BBC service observes the same policies and editorial standards of other English BBC broadcasting services on and off the screen. To achieve a better understanding of BBC Arabic commitment to gender equality and diversity, it is essential to monitor the gender of journalists invited to comment on the press, the content of articles, gender of writers of articles chosen for discussion and the media source by country of articles chosen for discussion on the weekly BBC Arabic journalism show ‘7 Days’ which discusses press content. Key Words: BBC, Arabic, gender, diversity, representation, television, journalism. Introduction Iqbal Tamimi Page 3 Concerns over Visibility, Gender Equity and Diversity at BBC Arabic World Service A couple of years ago the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) celebrated International Women’s Day. The main guest speaker was Dinah Caine, Chief Executive of the training organisation Skillset, who has been documenting the conditions women face while working in British broadcasting. She expressed concerns over women’s share in the audio-visual sector, which has fallen from 38 per cent in 2006 to 27 per cent in 2009. In television women’s work force fell from 45 per cent to 41 per cent; which means almost 5,000 women had left the industry, compared to 750 men, despite the fact that 79 per cent of the women working in this industry are graduates, compared to 63 per cent of men. Caine has also found the age of half the number of women working in television is less than 35 years old, and more women than men are working unpaid to get a foot in the door; 47 per cent to 42 per cent (Caine, 2010). The fact that more women are entering the media professions than ever before this does not necessarily mean it is a result of a radical transformation of media content, even when we can see the mark made by individual media women, on certain types of output (Gallagher, 2002, p.10). Generally speaking, women are outnumbered by men on screen (Dines and Humez, 1995). The global report on the status of women in the news media (IWMF, 2011) found that women represent a third (33.3%) of the full-time journalism workforce in 522 companies surveyed around the world. Women suffer pressures in advertising, television, film and new media sectors to be sexually attractive (Gunter, 1986, pp. 89), and older anchor women suffer age discrimination (Buchman, 1985, pp. 190-215). The underrepresentation of women on current affairs shows is attributed to some extent to stereotyping women by audiences and television channels. Consequently a small percentage of women appear on hard news (Okunna, 1992, pp. 47-58). Arab news channels such as al- Arabiya fell in this trap by airing adverts that stereotype women, reflecting professional Iqbal Tamimi Page 4 Concerns over Visibility, Gender Equity and Diversity at BBC Arabic World Service women inferior to men (Tamimi, 2010), thus confirming earlier published research findings by (Dominick and Rauch, 1972, pp. 259-265) which proves that women are stereotyped by television channels. Women’s credibility in the news Promotions and distribution of journalism tasks among women working at newsrooms are influenced directly or indirectly by their physical appearance. A recent research by (Grabe and Samson, 2012, pp. 471-496) found that sexy looking female anchors have diminished credibility among male viewers, and male and female viewers react differently towards women working in the news who are done up to look alluring; with men questioning their credibility, believing they may not have what it takes to cover hard news. British newsreader Susanna Reid complained about the public fixation over her breasts. Charlotte Kemp, another British journalist and an Oxford University graduate published an article about her own experience, complaining that she hasn't been taken seriously throughout her journalism career because of her large breasts too. She wrote in an article published by ‘The Mail’ (Kemp, 2010): ‘When I got my break as a feature writer on a national tabloid newspaper, I quickly made a name for myself for all the wrong reasons. There were no page three girls, but there was still sexist exploitation. While my flat-chested colleagues covered war zones and famine in Africa, I was sent undercover to get a job as a bunny girl, posing in a figure-hugging satin leotard with tail and ears in the middle of Leicester Square. Piers Morgan was editor. I can only presume he is a breast man’. There are tens of women who claim they were fired from their jobs in broadcasting because they became older. Becoming older does not make one wiser and more skilled it Iqbal Tamimi Page 5 Concerns over Visibility, Gender Equity and Diversity at BBC Arabic World Service seems if a woman is working in television, this apparently make her less attractive and not good enough for the job she perfected for many years. Some women who were fired because they got older include: Vicky Gutierrez, Christine Craft, Janet Peckinpaugh, Carol Kaplan, Susan Hutchison, Marny Stanier Midkiff, Shelly Sindland, Sue Simmons, Ann Curry and many more. Regarding working off screen at television channels, only 8% of directors, 13.6% of writers, and 19.1% of producers are women (Smith and Choueiti, 2011). A survey produced by (IWMF, 2011, p.51) that monitored 6 Egyptian media companies, found women in Egyptian news companies are severely under-represented at the executive and decision making and policy setting levels. Only (12.5%) were in governance and (20%) in top-level management. The journalistic ranks with the least number of women are in production and design, making (7.7%) of the media workforce. Women working as media technical professionals made (10.5%). These categories contain important specialists in set design, photography, camera and sound, but are not directly involved with gathering or reporting
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