Counting the cost is here. And im really going to why all mel panels still i think today we discuss an issue that is near and dear to our hearts the lack of women in media if this is an issue thats important to you let us know how it affects your life tweet us or join our live chat and you too could be in the stream. So we have man friend says him posing mandals when it comes to speaking engagements men continue to outnumber women by a large margin in the media well the same rules apply have you noticed over the past couple of years the string was made a concerted effort to die 1st if i guess puddles look at this wall it took hundreds of extra hours of researching networking and creative thinking but that work has paid off in 2017 only 43 percent of our guests were women in 2018 we made an intentional effort to reach out to more female casts and reach gender parity now in 2019 we end the year with more female experts than male ones. Our executive producer barry malone launched our gender Balance Initiative heres what he had to say about the effort. Theres very Important Reasons for us to do this. Representation is important and its important that the media whether its the stream or aljazeera english or any other Media Organization its important that we reflect the societies in which we operate and if you have gender bias newsroom whether thats behind the scenes if you put no gender imbalance shows then youre going to end up with skewed conversations that dont reflect the society around you and honestly thats just not good enough for the media you know just try and improve you know just start tomorrow and take tomorrow show or tomorrows newspaper article or whatever it is that you produce and just make that extra effort to produce more women. To book more women and what youll find is hopefully what we found is that the numbers keep rising and i think that you know what happened to us is we got to a cove to pull them off place to say our pledge to you now as the stream is that we will never pass another year with less than 50 percent women as our guests. Ok so joining us in our studio to discuss White Christmas and representation. Lisa lisa lisa is the executive director of the International WomensMedia Foundation. The washington d. C. Based Group Provides training tools and assistance to female journalists across the well a so how often have you heard a program or Media Organization say we pray we are going to have 5050 in terms of gender equality was the last time you had i dont think ive ever heard a pledge to reach 5050 gender parity in the news media i think there are promises to but do better and to try really hard but most Media Organizations dont put the work behind that promise. So your organization the International WomensMedia Foundation was founded 30 years ago and started out and i want to bring this up to see what changed the tweet we got from elliott who says is that because there is still that mindset that men know better with certain areas of discussion like politics economics and war but if the topic was on fashion cooking children it is likely women would be picked to discuss that is that why we see the mantles in the conferences of all men in the t. V. Shows with all men panels is this part of the problem and has that changed over the years well i think its a perception that is fed by the media and then it compounds and there is nothing challenging our societal biases so if you have a news media that is continually putting women forth as only being experts in fashion in cooking and childcare then that is the perception and those unconscious biases are reinforced by the individuals who make up most of the news media who are men white men how do you break through that what do you do that something that you organization has been trying to do for a long time there are a couple of ways that i think you can challenge that in one is the counting and is just really in my opinion the only way that you can do better if youre not counting on a weekly basis on a monthly basis then youre not going to change because how can you change your bias if you dont even know that you have it some people dont know that they have it and then really women just arent giving the same opportunities as in the journalism profession so our Organization Also tries to challenge the barrier that they face and provide opportunities that will help them be noticed help them get promotions help them get those gigs that theyre not getting in Mainstream Media i want to share a video comment we got from a reporter out of hong kong this is mary hughes this is what she told the stream. I think gender parity is important. But more broadly in media representation in general because only with diversity can we really try and get closer to fully capturing the complexities of the ground those not hearing from a certain segment of society means that we really risk missing out on an entire chunk of the narrative so its not just gender parity that we should be aiming for its diversity of all kinds of the city religion political leanings and the like. She says this is beyond just gender but of course you also have some people who say people should be picked based on their merit based on their experience what do you think about. I reject the notion that you have to be neutral when youre looking for experts i think that we have to correct historical wrongs and historical misperceptions and the only way to do that is to go out of your way and find the people who arent being put in front of you on a silver platter i mean it takes a little work to find the right person but the media is just failing if it is not actually representing the society that its supposed to be reporting on at least one of things that our team found was. A little piece of video to show you how do you put together a gender balance panel and i can very concrete tips is have a look. So easy just point that you do this you do this you can do this and also all swimmy right want to see you before you go with what well i think that you also have to count on men to step up to the plate and not participate in manaus and there are huge movements in your up where they are the ones taking it on themselves and they say im not participating on a man all or how many women did you call before you called me so i mean we cant fight this battle alone thank you thank you for joining us thanks so much so important now this topic is not just about women men also lament the lack of diversity in media and on panels heres what one member of our community. Had to say im coming to you now from new delhi in the land of the all male panels on the Television Conferences and elsewhere after that i not only do not speak on the all male panels i dont attend all male panels the reason is that they be our discriminatory and dont give people a chance to hear other points of view than those of us who are blessed to have a chance to speak have an obligation to ask well to speak and suggest women people of color and other minorities and give them a chance to participate in the speaking opportunities that we can only if all of us do that can we make a change. Some of our interview producers are now joining us to discuss the streams effort to feature more women on our Program Welcome suleika hussein who has been with the show since it launched in 2011 so in your book that you can find qualified women to talk about anything from 45 in puerto rican politics and im not a never give up so to you know because. I would have. She booked the guest for today show says shes back there in the control room stand up take a balance thank you very much. This was an easy im going. But its not easy lazy can you tell us your worst moment ever guestbook in trying to get the right guest another you start so i was trying to focus safety for journalists in europe and particularly the case of a journalist in multiple names to see was murdered and we were just talking about journalism particular woman and every organization i called recommended a male experts to be on the surface i would like go through everyones list of employees and pick out the women in there keep giving me their mail boxes and so we went on there and fortunately its one of my fattest moments with an all white male panel and then we had a guest who emailed to be honest so who didnt respond tweet in about how it is an all male panel talking about women. And i was and they were so sad and i was so afraid. We were sadder in our in our meetings we have meetings when we dont have to you can tell were just asking about the newsroom just so upset that we felt at that one time so later. Absolutely weve definitely had mandals over the course of the last year is. I remember when we started the stream show in 2011 we did a show on domestic drones rising and it was a panel with a total of 5 males i think including the 2 hosts both of them were male at the time and so thats a big change that we have 2 women hosting this show but weve definitely changed and because our premise from the very beginning was that we will reflect the societies the under represented societies that needed to be on there and i think the power of the demo democratising of social media that brings up representation i think we as gatekeepers have to have to be involved so you just saw that on your screen there the show that she was talking about but i want to peek in just a little closer on my laptop here domestic drones on the rise you have a drone on the table just rushing was the gas hes also an aljazeera correspondent which i havent seen a former former host of the show so i get what youre saying there but we got a comment from someone on you tube that i want to share this person says you just created an imbalance by feeding men entirely i think you mean that weve been out of todays show so it is not easy to talk about ourselves and even when this show was pitching our plenty meeting i think people felt uncomfortable about it how did you feel about it why do you think its important for you to have come on the show yeah i think i think its important what were doing i mean the fact is that there are a lot of women in leadership positions there are a lot of women experts out there but unfortunately they dont get the exposure that their male counterparts do so its important that we talk about the challenges that we face in trying to find those voices so for instance in a recent show that i. We were talking about the legacy of the a k 47 and as you can imagine the all the experts that i found on that show were predominantly white male and so i had to become creative and think of a way to get a woman voice on there and i ended up finding a journalist thankfully who reported on the arms trade and the thing is she brought a depth the nuance of the conversation that i dont think would have been there how did we not brought her on so it ended up being a success and right and i think a lot of times its not just us out there just searching for the voices its about when we did the show on black muslim poetry i remember one of our guests that we really wanted thought a story he was like no i dont i think you should get this person and shes a woman and shes amazing and shes this 2 time grand slam champion and we had her on study of issues she was excellent and so a lot of times its about walk people who are also allies in this its not just about getting their voices but when we have the right mindset its always possible i wondering about the guests from the guest perspective when they see the diversity on the show whats been the response that youve got i mean i think i mean when it comes to decide i realize and i think as people of color particularly in the news are we are so sensitive to voices that are marginalized and so im very honest when it comes to get. To really white men like we are very passionate about reserving to see that our table for women and so for that reason were going to fold a spot with a woman ideally a woman of color and most times when i say about a white man they have nothing to say back or theyre like yeah we agree and so very rarely usually i said next year. I cringe myself when i hear you do it because they think oh this is so what are they going to say talk us through your process let the audience is exactly what do you tell people when they suggest a name that thats not the name you want i just say its important to the stream that we reserve a seat at the table for women of color particularly in voices where women in spaces and conversations when we. In the typically marginalized i dont know if people dont like you or that. You know youve got to know but has anyone. Thought that because youre fairly dropping them we dont want. Yeah i mean ive had ive had guests who seem very offended when im like listen to your great youd be great for the show but i need a woman voice on this program and i will say over the years thats happened less and less so more often than not when i say to people i appreciate you offering up yourself as a guest but i really need a woman they say to me hey thats really refreshing like i really appreciate that you care about and i care about that too and let me help you out let me get you connected to some place thats up women and its not just women right and its also like other marginalized communities indigenous voices disability communities that every single group that were going after were like very adamantly saying no this is the person that we want and not whoever were talking to im well this is really about lived experience were looking for somebody whos in the heart of the story and from the story the whole point of our show is that anybody can speak to be officials making policy about their countries and their conversations and so we had a show about puerto rico sonya actually line produce that and it was about the governor releasing homophobic an anti l g b t q texan tweets or got leaked and we refused to have the show without an afro latina who. Recognize themselves and i was a bt Community Member and so its just given a voice to the people who are at the heart of the story as well so we got this tweet in from a viewer shes watching now maryam on twitter she says you ladies are phenomenal back all around still i sometimes question the gender focus because it can mean quote over quality do you think in your booking that that is true for you do you think sometimes you sacrifice quality because you want that his person represented that has never happened i mean if youre looking at that then. This is the truth. Honestly its never a situation where all of this is guess maybe a speaking style is different because were also looking for good t. V. Material but that doesnt mean that were going to say oh this person doesnt really know that much about the subject but were still going to have our because female quarter i mean i was a guys all the time right guys my other little bit i could be the this is the thing. I find the only guess that come back to go i dont know if im qualified for this show you know women and you almost have to convince women that they are qualified to be what they already are and thats i think this fallacy of women not being experts in their field thats not really like if you look over there youll find that theyre not what topic were at its not real and to be honest when were talking about these kinds of voices being represented were just looking at our own newsroom our team and i tell this all the time is that its that you when were our entire team is majority of women so glad you said that keep talking im going to show pictures from. When i look at me im a brown speaking Indian American muslim how many more hyphenated i want to person here and literally thats every Single Person on our team is like a different voice and when were hiring and i great job with our Team Leadership that they always are looking to hire such a Diverse Panel promotion. Thing years on this team and its been generations of women and so its important to remember what the stream is about and that and mission of the stream has always been to amplify a lesser known voices so. You said you need diversity to place so if youre watching this show you think lets try and see if we can do gender parity 2020 if you dont have a tie 1st team how they can and how they want to do it i think you can instantly. Im sure everyone in this room can instantly tell when the story went out or a story was published and there wasnt one man of color in that room there wasnt a person of color there wasnt a woman and you can see in the end product when its all males and its always and you can sometimes see that within the our own network i mean theyre going to call anyone out but there are other production programs within the network where often you see a panel of 3 white males and i think you thats very rarely do we ever have that on the stream i think i want to jump in here because were having this great conversation and were loving it we think some of our audience members are loving it but i want to share the people who arent as much because there are so many comments like this coming to us live on you tube right now so im going to share a few miss jenny where are the men on your panel another person says the question does not address why people are on panels people should be on panels based on their knowledge not their identity several people writing that in another person tommy this is the last one ill read who says Quality Matters not gender so this is this is difficult so i can see you want to reply to that what would you say to them and also maybe talk about the constraints of your job because you managed to make a diverse even with only one or 2 days to book yeah i was going to say i mean that those comments are making the assumption that there are not enough qualified women to bring on to this program which is just untrue i mean my process when im looking for that voice that is hard to find as firstly i consult my colleagues who are all women and you know they have incredible rolodex of contacts but then im reaching out to the analysts the experts the journalist who perhaps isnt a woman and im saying hey i need that woman can you connect me and they connect me to one person who connects me to the next until i find that voice it is possible to. Not read the old mail t. Who a book guess but its not ok to have a team that has a lot of women on it why is that an issue the questions these. Of questions that are coming up are because when when they are looking at the experts that are already speaking on there most of them are male what were saying is there are people who are not on air right now and these are people who have not been on t. V. But theyre out there doing the job and so getting those voices out there is important because the more they see their faces when we see our faces on air thats when we have more positive impact whether its Community Whether its online or whether its your industry youre engaging the youre engaging the Online Computer community and the audience so much more when you have people that are representative of then and their stories and at the end of a thats just makes for a better job i have to say thank you so much because i hear you really can i hear you every day tell the guest to act like its a real conversation talk to each other bounce back was in full was extraordinary and very very much back in the control room great booking. We should do whatever the thing is its one of. The diversity we never talk about is this im going to move out like a slightly to do this right talk about it you dont say well im a british nigerian she calls. Like we dont talk about that because its just how we roll on the stream. And the guests feel comfortable and they feel like theyre in a safe space and they can talk to us about anything but that is about to change because this one is leaving this stream this is what we have to say about it take a look. Social media. It didnt create the revolution. But it is definitely. Giving them a voice stepping into the role of digital producer today. Away. For those who dont know much about. Working and what else do we need to know about im excited to be in d. C. And on this couch. Very good. Many want once again cohost of the show the stream of social media streaming. In one of the i think they call of bloggers. We cant get into the deeper issues of this conversation without you at home so join the conversation. Because this is a topic in our Community Cares about and so with that im going to share a tweet from one of them im going to give us a little bit of a spicy start. My favorite show on. The web and i read a. Very people that watch our show that you are what we call our community. Why. This documentary is about progressive women running for office what do you think that the new. Young women like yourself bring to the table that wasnt there before but i think its an entirely new perspective thank you so much stanley i know this is all you said thats right. Thank you to this dream team and of course to our community i promise it wasnt a crying. But this is a show about breaking barriers and doing things you dont normally see on t. V. So this is happening thank you for allowing me to be a part of your community and for being in your company for these past even half years im not going far so actually its time to smile now getting down the hall im going to be a part of al jazeera as a big push and do a whole new media for the channel as host of the pod cast that take its where were going to give you the story behind the stories that you see on the stream and on the rest of our air you can join me head over to pod cast dot com hold it up here click on the take and then subscribe we launch in 2020 until then femi and the rest of the stream team will see you on line. After years of overgrazing the damage caused to the precious grasslands of chile is being revised with one of the worlds biggest ever conservation projects. Theyre pretty emblematic of the patagonians there if theyre plentiful and theyre calm like this one is then you know that the system is going back and that they feel no threat was worse and thats why youre on your rewilding patagonia on aljazeera. The latest news as it breaks boeing is the 100. 00 manufacturing exporter in the u. S. With detailed coverage critics say secular protections a great in the Indian Constitution and now on the front. And fearless journalism from around the world recycling fanfares like this one play a crucial role in argentinas Waste Management system. In africas technological at the center urban awful us and brutal poverty to live side by side. In its 1st episode life ops challenges kenyan up developers to help small scale farmers cultivate a new future but can mobile phones really be the seed of change its a spotting plant recalls a tour of the old people to go live outside Silicon Savannah on aljazeera. Aljazeera. Every your. 0. However im standing at a and this is the news hour live from doha coming up in the next 60 minutes the International Criminal court on child an investigation into war crimes in the palestinian territories. So the eyes have it be aris. Britains new parliament votes overwhelming need to pass. More violence and more than india and protests elsewhere