Where are the women in media? Tune in for a free fireside chat with Jan Fran this Wednesday

Where are the women in media? Tune in for a free fireside chat with Jan Fran this Wednesday

Jan Fran

You’d be hard pressed finding a person in Australia who doesn’t know and love Jan Fran.

The 35-year-old, journalist and presenter has become a fixture on our screens, headlining SBS’ popular satirical news program ‘The Feed’ for years, as well as regularly appearing on Network Ten’s ‘The Project’ and ABC News. She’s also an Ambassador for Plan International Australia, hosting a series of podcasts called Sexism and the City, commissioned by the organisation, and will be releasing a much-anticipated comedic memoir next year.

Register for this Wednesday’s 10:30 Reader Chat with Tarla Lambert here.

As a young woman in this country however, and especially a young woman with a culturally diverse background (Fran’s heritage is Lebanese), the odds were undeniably stacked against her. Why? Because sadly women are hard to come by in Australia’s media, and their presence is especially lacking on the issues that mean the most to a functioning society.

A 2019 report put together last year by the Women’s Leadership Institute took a snapshot of influential news sites on four consecutive Thursdays in October with report authors Jenna Price and Anne Maree Payne concluding that what we read falls grossly short of reflecting the fact that women comprise half the population.

“What do we read when we enter the top space of those websites? We read stories about men, by men,” Price and Payne write.

“Our snapshot showed men were quoted far more often than women and that the stories by male journalists were positioned slightly more often in the top spots on the home pages of these websites. Women write about royals and men write about political leaders. Men write about sport, women write about media, the arts and entertainment.”

But at a time when we’re facing more unprecedented challenges than ever before, it’s never been more important for women to have a voice and a platform—preferably several of both.

This Wednesday at 10:30am, you can join me in conversation with Jan Fran as we wade through the weeds on this. How do we get to a place where more women, (and particularly more young, diverse women) are given the megaphone they need? What are we losing out on when this isn’t the case?

Webcasts like this one will regularly run on our newly launched members’ platform, Women’s Agenda Extra, which you can sign up to here. This topic is especially fitting, when the principal purpose of Extra is to see more women quoted in the media and female thought leaders exposed in the way they deserve.

As a special offer however, this interactive conversation will be freely accessible to all our readers as a thank you for your ongoing support.

Hope to see you there!

You can sign up to join the webcast with Tarla Lambert in conversation with Jan Fran here.

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