Secure but. What does this major event for the future of the rest join us with coverage and analysis of the trump impeachment on al jazeera. And im really going to why all all male panels still a thing 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 youtube chat and you too could be in the stream. So we have man friend says him posing mantles 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 gas 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 thats behind the scenes if you put no gender and balanced 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 and 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 bill enough place to say our pledge to you now as the stream is that we will never pass another the year with less than 50 percent women as our guests. Ok so joining us in our studio to discuss why inclusiveness and representation matter 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 world is how often have you heard a program or Media Organization say we pledge we are going to have 5050 in terms of gender equality was the last time you heard 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 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 about and i want to bring this up to see what changed the tweet we got from leave who says is it 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 car but does involve 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 thats something that you organization has been trying to do for a long time you know there are a couple of ways that i think you can challenge the other one is the counting and by. 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 men 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 here this is what she told the stream. I think john the parity is Important Media 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 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 they can very concrete tips lets have a look. So easy just point this you do this you can do this and also a swimming 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 demand all or how many women did you call before you called me so i mean we can 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 india land of the all male panels on the Television Conferences and elsewhere just as i not only do not speak on the all male panels i dont attend all male panels the reason is that may be our discriminatory and dont give people a chance to hear other points of view that 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 so they got 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 mins to puerto rican politics and im not a never give up to you know because. I would have. She booked a guest for today show since shes back there in the control room stand up take a ballot thank you very much. This was an easy going. But its not easy lazy can you tell us the worst moment ever guess book in trying to get the right guests 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 air and fortunately its one of my that of moments with an all white male panel and then we had a guest who i had emailed to deal with 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 very you know we were in our in our meetings we had meetings when we dont have to you can tell were just working around the newsroom just so upset that we felt at that one time so later. Absolutely weve definitely had mammals 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 democratizing 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 former former host of the show so i get what youre saying there but we got a comment from someone on you tube but i want to share this person says you just created an imbalance by feeding men entirely i think. 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 womans voice on there and i ended up finding a journalist thankfully who reported on the arms trade and the thing is she brought adapt 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 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 side the issue 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 what has 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 our newsroom were so sensitive to voices that are marginalized and so im very honest when it comes to get. To really white men and we are very passionate about reserving to see that our table for women and so for that reason were going to fold to spar 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 very rarely use it so 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 people dont i recall that. Was you know you got to know you but has anyone. Got that because youre fairly dropping them we dont want. So 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 connect to some voices of women and its not just women right now 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 one of 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 the 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 texts and tweets and got leaked and we refused to have the show without an afro latina who. Recognized 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. All around still i sometimes question the gender focus because that 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 never. 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 guys that come back to go i dont know if im qualified for the show you know women and you almost have to convince women that they are qualified to be what they already are and thats the thing this fallacy of women not being experts in their field thats not really like if you look over them and youll find that theyre not what topic 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 as majority 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. Something 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 play stupid so if youre watching the show you think lets try and see if we can do gender parity 2020 if you dont have a 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 a woman 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 that 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 find it was the old male teen who a book a guess but its not ok to have a team that has a lot of women on it why is that the questions these. Of questions that are coming up are because when when they are looking at the exp