White Ribbon Campaign Pakistan is hosting a National Conference on Gender and Media in March, the group’s Omer Aftab told iMediaEthics by e-mail.
The conference will be held on International Women’s Day March 8.
We wrote in January after the White Ribbon Campaign held a conference, “Gender Sensitive Reporting,” to discuss the idea of a gender-sensitive code of ethics. The White Ribbon Campaign Pakistan identifies itself as “the largest effort in the world of men working to end violence against women.”
According to Aftab, the event will be a one-day conference and “over 150 working journalists from across Pakistan” are scheduled to attend. “The inaugural session will also be attended by women/human rights activists and civil society organizations,” he wrote.
Aftab included the White Ribbon Campaign media program that lists diversity in the newsroom and stereotyping as major ethical issues that women journalists face in Pakistan. In an e-mail to iMediaEthics, he added “security in the field” and harassment as other issues.
Proposed topics for the conference include:
- “Launch of code of conduct for gender sensitive reporting
- “Launch of gender sensitive media alumni
- “Issues of women journalists in media
- “Issues of security for journalists in Pakistan”
We asked how these topics were chosen and be included in the conference. He wrote: “The topics for the conference have been finalized based on the baseline study conducted with 280 journalists and consultative sessions attended by over 190 journalists. These are all seminars.”
Seminars will be led by senior journalists, according to Aftab. One part of the conference will include the gender-sensitive code of ethics. He wrote:
“Previously there has been no formal or written code of conduct for gender sensitive reporting. We are right now in the process of finalizing the code which has been developed in consultation with over 190 journalists across Pakistan.”
Aftab said by e-mail he would send us a copy of the code in March. He added that the code was created “involving journalists from all media houses” and following the March 8 publication, the White Ribbon Campaign will work to get media organizations to sign on.