TMR 2022: The need for diverse, inclusive newsrooms

The Media Rumble 2022 saw the release of Gender Representation in Indian Newsrooms, a report produced by Newslaundry and UN Women. Its findings were startling – such as how 87 percent of editors and proprietors at India’s top newspapers are men – and begged the question as to how newsrooms can be made more inclusive, diverse and intersectional.

This was the theme of “Gender in Newsrooms”, a panel discussion at The Media Rumble, which took place in Delhi on October 14 and 15. Moderated by Newslaundry’s Mehraj D Lone, the panel comprised Geeta Pandey, women and social affairs editor at BBC Online; Neetu Singh, founder of Shades of Rural India; and Ragamalika Karthikeyan, editor (special projects and experiments) at the News Minute.

“It’s easy to say ‘I will build a newsroom with a non-exclusion policy, I’m open to hiring trans people and non-binary people’, but do you have the infrastructure?” Ragamalika asked. “Do you have the sensitivity? Do you have the training for leadership and management to make sure that person stays?”

Watch.

Text by Vardhan Saklani.