Leading in a Different Language: Will Women Change the News Media?

Leading in a Different Language: Will Women Change the News Media? is both a portrait of where women stand in the international media in 2000 and an examination of the changes that women might bring to the media in the future. The report builds on a decade of work with international women journalists by the International Women's Media Foundation; it incorporates IWMF research, anecdotal evidence from surveys conducted among women journalists, and research done by media scholars and media associations. Many of the observations and conclusions came from the more than 100 women media leaders from 60 countries who attended IWMF's groundbreaking conference on women in news media leadership in Washington, DC in May 2000.

Today, the majority of media companies worldwide are managed by men. While some women have advanced into media leadership, men make most of the decisions about what does and what does not constitute news. In addition, women are not moving into leadership positions in the media in numbers that reflect their numbers in society. With this report, the IWMF looks at obstacles and challenges that women face as they aspire to leadership roles in the media and opens the dialogue on how women media leaders might change the way news is reported, shaped and presented in the future.