El Knight Center for Journalism, de la Universidad de Texas, recoge un artículo mío sobre en informe que está elaborando la Fundación Internacional de Mujeres en los Medios (conocida como IWMF) en su blog sobre periodismo  latinoamericano.

PERIODISMO EN LAS AMERICAS

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Fundación internacional recopila informe sobre igualdad de género en la prensa mundial

La Fundación Internacional de Mujeres en los Medios (IWMF, por su sigla en inglés) está tratando de medir el progreso —o la falta de progreso— en el papel que desempeñas las mujeres en los medios alrededor del mundo.

El reporte de la IWMF, que será presentado en 2010, examina la estructura de la industria de medios en todo el mundo desde una perspectiva de género. El IWMF realizará encuestas a más de 500 organizaciones informativas en 66 países. Inter Press Service (IPS) entrevistó a la coordinadora del proyecto, Elisa Muñoz.

En un artículo anterior sobre el mismo tema, IPS planteó que la representación de las mujeres es baja en los niveles de poder más altos de las organizaciones mediales. En Suecia, por ejemplo, tres de cada cuatro líderes de la industria de medios son hombres, según el informe “El género del periodismo” (en formato PDF), realizado por Monika Djerf-Pierre.

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Mario de Queiroz and Miren Gutierrez* interview MARIO SOARES, former Portuguese President

LISBON, Jun 3 (IPS) – Global house prices are diving further, unemployment in the 16 countries using the euro increased in April to its highest level in almost ten years, and Eurozone Gross Domestic Product is expected to shrink by 1.9 percent during 2009…So what is Europe doing about it? Voters among the European Union’s 500 million people in 27 countries will be casting their ballots Jun. 4-7 to choose their representatives to the European Parliament for the next five years. The new Parliament will set the tone and pace of European policies in the face of the crisis.

Socialist Mario Soares thinks these elections are crucial, and that the socialists of Europe should put up a presidential candidate for the European Commission who can implement their anti-crisis plan.

Soares was the first Premier of democratic Portugal from 1976 to 1978, again from 1983 to 1985, and then President from 1986 to 1996. Even his critics admit that his main accomplishment was to turn public opinion around and to negotiate Portugal’s entry into the EU in 1986. Portugal at the time was suspicious of integration into the EU.

Soares wrote recently about the financial crisis and the position of the Socialists of Europe. He responded to IPS in line with some of his analysis.

IPS: What has been the difference of response to the financial crisis between the U.S. and Europe?

MARIO SOARES: The current global crisis is the worst since 1929, and will be a prolonged one. But some positive signals are now coming from the U.S., which is focussing its efforts on the real economy.

Barack Obama is saying that we only will overcome this crisis by taking measures that ordinary citizens understand because those measures meet their needs and aspirations, involving social and environmental changes, and also punishment of those who are guilty of greed.

In contrast, the European Union, governed by actors of the past – some of them close to former U.S. president George Bush — has not been able to agree on a coordinated plan to respond to this crisis. This was the final outcome of the London G20 Summit on Apr. 2. It seems most of the European leaders just want to change the minimum possible to keep things as they are.

The U.S. of Barack Obama has understood this, even though the U.S. has not yet emerged from the crisis. In contrast, the EU, divided, without an assertive leadership and lacking a clear path, is being marginalised, with negative repercussions for all European countries.

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En español

Miren Gutierrez* interviews SAADIA ZAHIDI, head of the Women Leaders and Gender Parity Programme at the World Economic Forum (WEF)

ROME, Mar 18 (IPS) – Denying women access to political and economic power is a “strategic waste”, says Saadia Zahidi, co-author of the WEF’s Global Gender Gap (GGG) report in a telephone interview from Geneva.The GGG index ranks countries according to gender equality, and it is designed to measure gender-based gaps in access to resources and opportunities in individual countries rather than the overall levels of the available resources in those countries. It looks at four factors: economic participation and opportunity; educational attainment; political empowerment; and health and survival of women. And the results are surprising. Zahidi discusses concrete cases based on the data dug out for the GGG report.IPS: You have participated in the GGG from the beginning, since 2006. Could you highlight an important trend since then?

Saadia Zahidi: If you look at the 115 countries, the majority of them are improving. This is quite a positive feature. Out of the 115 countries covered in 2006, 2007 and 2008, more than 80 percent, including developed and developing countries, have shown an overall improvement. There are few countries, though, 22, that are actually regressing. This is something to worry about.

In a backwards calculation since 2001 for 32 countries, we also see a lot of them that made an immense amount of progress, like Turkey, Japan, which have big gender gaps, but improved 7 to 10 percentage points. This can be interpreted as an actual change on the ground.

IPS: How do you explain the regression in 22 countries?

SZ: I cannot definitely say that there is something in common. The countries that have regressed include Germany (11) and Saudi Arabia (128). Those are vastly different countries.

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En español