Gender on Our News Radar: A View from Southeast Asia

"Because gender-related issues are woven into today's global conversations, they are naturally part of the stories that journalists report on. They are part of change - and change is the journalist's beat."

This handbook is designed to be a tool for learning and teaching about gender in journalism and communication in Southeast Asia. It contains practical tips, from the language of news to the methods of storytelling, that seek to help journalists, media professionals, and trainers integrate gender subtleties into their daily work. It shares examples and experiences from the region, as well as real-world tips drawn from doing journalism in the developing-country settings of Southeast Asia.

The handbook is designed to be used by trainers, teachers, and mentors to shape their courses and training events, as well as their discussions in classrooms and newsrooms. The book is part of the Fojo Media Institute's Southeast Asia Media Training Network project, which focused on building the capacity of, and co-learning with, media trainers in Cambodia, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Myanmar, and Vietnam, from 2016 to 2021. The publication complements a previous publication "Online Journalism and Storytelling: A Training and Learning Kit" (2020) (see Related Summaries, below).

Central to this resource is the view "that a gender-informed way of doing journalism, whether in reporting, editing or mentoring others, is not just 'nice'. It is necessary, an essential skillset if media professionals are to keep up with the world's changing conversations around gender." As explained in the handbook, "The use of gender as a news tool has become even more important - and obvious - in a society that is trying to deepen inclusion, respect for diversity at a time of many shared global challenges. At the same time, building gender into the core of journalism requires an understanding of the cultural, news and political settings that vary widely across Southeast Asia."

To ensure that the handbook is relevant to the context of Southeast Asia, it draws on survey-based research conducted by the Myanmar Journalism Institute and Cambodian Center for Independent Media in collaboration with Fojo Media. The research included reporters, editors, and media trainers and looked at how they view gender in their work. This approach did not just help ground the book in the region, but the responses from the survey validated the need to integrate a foundation of gender into today's journalism courses (highlights of these surveys' results can be found in the annex).

The book contains the following chapters, each with key messages and tips for trainers:

• Yes, the Conversation Is Changing: This chapter looks at how the narrative around gender is changing, as seen in the world of news, and how the use of a gender-informed lens improves stories.
• Some Words on Words - This chapter discusses the importance of words and language when reporting. It looks at the history of sexist bias in the English language, and it explores the emerging practice of using gender-neutral or non-binary pronouns and how it can be applied to languages in Southeast Asia.
• Dateline: Southeast Asia - With examples from Southeast Asia, this chapter looks at what storytelling around gender looks like from within the region, and what journalists could look out for in the future.
• Nuts and Bolts: Eight Tips and Three Habits - This chapter features tips for producing stories, as well as habits for journalists to widen their perspectives and journalistic skills. A tip, for example, includes taking a look at where the women or other genders are in a story and ensuring that diverse voices, viewpoints and backgrounds are reflected. One habit suggested is to attend webinars and events on different topics in order to stay updated on the issues of the day.
• Resources for the New Locker - The list of resources includes guidance on doing legwork and research, reporting and editing, or planning and managing news coverage. They range from glossaries of terms around gender to reliable data trackers and data visualisations, as well as thematic reports.