Since 2010, eight media outlets in Spain have incorporated a professional in charge of ensuring the gender perspective of journalistic information. A research team in journalistic ethics at UPF and the University of Valencia (UV) has analysed the advances that this professional figure has brought about and has determined that it has contributed to enhancing the parity of information sources and people who write opinion articles, but has not led to new journalistic approaches.

The lack of support from media management and the lack of independence and editorial decision-making of this professional figure are some of the main reasons. Hence the study concludes that the professional profile of gender editor must be further developed and that professional journalist associations and unions must play a key role to this end. The results of this research are set out in the article “Journalistic Self-Regulation for Equality: The Role of Gender Editing in Spain”, signed by Maria Iranzo-Cabrera, a professor and researcher at the Department of Language Theory and Communication Sciences at the University of Valencia (UV); and Mònica Figueras-Maz and Marcel Mauri-Ríos, both linked to the UPF Department of Communication.

Most media that employ this professional figure, mainly in the United States, Spain and Argentina, incorporated it after the emergence of the #Metoo international movement, which was born in the United States in 2017 to denounce sexual assaults and defend the rights of women and expanded around the world and in multiple sectors. The newspaper El Periódico de Catalunya created this figure in 2010, three years after the approval of the state equality law of 2007 that urges journalistic companies to guarantee gender equality in their content.

María Iranzo-Cabrera (UV), regarding the lack of autonomy and independence of gender editors: “this lack of support is illogical when your job is precisely to criticize the content or actions of the company where you work”

In their study, they analyse the case of El Periódico de Catalunya and the other seven media that have since incorporated the figure of gender editor: El País, eldiario.es, TVE, RNE, EFE, Radio y Televisión Públicas de la Comunidad Autónoma de Canarias, and El Periódico de España. To do so, they have administered a questionnaire on 10 journalists who have performed this function, all women, in addition to conducting a focus group and in-depth interviews. Globally, the 10 professionals interviewed offer a positive assessment of the task they carry out and only three express their dissatisfaction. However, they mention several aspects that are subject to improvement, especially with regard to their autonomy and recognition in the newsrooms. “With the exception of El País, these journalists who exercise the self-regulation of the media with regard to the gender perspective do not have a professional status that allows them full autonomy and independence. This is illogical when your job is precisely to criticize the content or actions of the company where you work. Therefore, you must be protected and feel supported by the medium, especially by the management”, Iranzo-Cabrera (UV) asserts.

Mònica Figueras (UPF), regarding the professional profile entrusted with gender editing: “Ideally s/he should be on the management team”

Moreover, the professionals interviewed demand greater professional recognition, also in terms of salary and their professional career. For half of them, performing these functions has not involved any improvement in their professional category and only four have received a salary supplement. In fact, half of the 10 professionals surveyed combine gender editing with their roles as sub-editors. All respondents agree that this professional profile needs to be defined more accurately. “Ideally s/he should be on the management team”, Mònica Figueras assures.

Regarding content, the majority (7 out of 10) are of the opinion that information does not incorporate the gender perspective sufficiently, for example with regard to the need to break down data by sex. To correct these shortcomings, Iranzo explains that gender editors should be enabled to intervene on content “prior to its publication or dissemination”, not a posteriori as the press ombudsperson.

Marcel Mauri (UPF): “this figure exists with some normality in the state public media and it is noted that the private media that also employ such a figure are general printed or digital newspapers that are positioned in the progressive ideological spectrum”

The incorporation of the gender editor has not been homogeneous across all types of medium. For Marcel Mauri (UPF), “this figure exists with some normality in the state public media and it is noted that the private media that also employ such a figure are generalist printed or digital newspapers that are positioned in the progressive ideological spectrum”. 

Finally, the article warns that, despite the progress achieved, since the outbreak of the covid pandemic, a certain involution has been detected, for three main reasons: the concentration by the media on covering the pandemic, which has led to a loss of attention to other issues; the internal differences and  tensions within the feminist movement itself in recent years, and the increase in the political representation in Spain of extreme right-wing alternatives, which question the gender perspective.