Reflecting Reality in Mongolia
The Media Council of Mongolia
Learn more about the programs changing gender equality in newsrooms across the country.
Reflect Reality served as a resource for the Media Council of Mongolia on best practices to increase the sourcing of women in news, which include tracking and monitoring content, trainings and creation of a database of women experts.
Overview
According to a 2020 report from the Mongolian Media Today, 62% of creative staff in the media industry of Mongolia (journalists, reporters, directors and editors) are women. Women also represent 49% of decision-making executives in radio and television, 54% in newspapers and magazines, and 56% at news sites. These are striking numbers in line with the country’s history of successes related to gender equality, and the diversity inside of newsrooms is an important step in achieving this goal.
However, only 18% of government officials, politicians, ministers and spokespersons appearing in Mongolian news media are women. This trend is shown globally according to the Global Media Monitoring Project, where 68% of women shown in media were shown in domestic or caring roles.
This disparity between the diversity in media houses across Mongolia and male dominated sourcing shows the key issue the Media Council of Mongolia (MCM) wanted to address. By developing media trainings, mentorships, editorial guidelines and a database of women sources, the Council has successfully sparked a movement across media organizations in the country to pay attention to the gap.
Programming
Established in 2015, the Media Council of Mongolia brought together journalist associations and media organizations to function as an “independent self-regulator” for print, broadcast and online media. The Council upholds the Mongolian Media Ethics Principles by collecting complaints for content not adhering to those principles and sharing rulings from the Ethics Committee following submission. At the crux of its mission, the MCM supports press freedom by encouraging media houses and journalists to follow professional and ethical journalistic standards to serve the public interest. Following their study in 2021, they received 383 complaints in six years of being active, and around 33% were complaints about human rights, dignity and privacy, disrespect, discrimination, and stereotyping.
In addition to monitoring complaints, the MCM engages directly with newsrooms across the country to support the capacity of journalists reporting on these issues through the News for Equality coalition.
In 2022, Reflect Reality collaborated with Media Council on best practices to track and increase the sourcing of women in news, which include tracking and monitoring content, trainings and creation of a database of women experts.
Below are some activities of the Media Council of Mongolia and their impact.
Launching of the News for Equality Coalition
The News for Equality coalition launched in November 2021 with a mandate to create a friendly environment for journalists and editors to improve their knowledge and skills, and exchange experiences on gender sensitive reporting.
One key project from the coalition was the Newsroom Mentorship Program, where the MCM engaged in 2-month programs with media organizations to enhance their newsroom policies, integrate the gender lens in their news agenda and track news sources to improve overall representation. These mentors met weekly with journalists to develop story ideas breaking gender biases and provided editorial assistance to produce at least five gender stories. Further initiatives were launched by the same newsrooms to further amplify women’s voices and combat gender bias in news. In addition, the newsrooms GoGo.mn and Zuuni Medee became partners of BBC’s 50:50.
Since the launch, the News for Equality Coalition has had more than 30 trainings for 700 journalists. It also held open meetings, called “The Story of My Story,” for member journalists to share personal stories of their work with other reporters. Members have access to online webinars on women’s political participation in Mongolia and quarterly newsletters on relevant topics. The MCM continued opportunities for participation of women expert in press meetings titled “She Says,” where they can comment on ongoing newsworthy issues on topics where women’s points of view remain invisible.
The News for Equality Coalition also launched a virtual newsroom in February 2023. The newsroom provides editorial support and encouragement to journalists who desire to contribute to the development of society by producing stories on gender equality, further improving their skills, and earning the trust of their audience. The pilot program tasked journalists to write stories on women leadership in IT. Since its launch, journalists produced 53 stories, and they have since been shared across platforms in Mongolian.
Newsroom Guidelines: “Gender Equality in Political News Reporting”
The MCM published their newsroom guidelines for gender equality in political news reporting in 2022. The 50-page guide outlines the necessity of a gender sensitive lens in reporting and aims to improve the knowledge and skills of journalists and editors to produce quality and ethical work on the problem of gender inequality at the decision-making level.
The guide breaks down the limited political power of women in Mongolia, how women are generally portrayed in media, case studies of organizations working to improve gender parity in media, and provides recommendations to journalists and editors on how to ensure gender balance in the newsroom.
View the full guide, in Mongolian, here.
Journalist Trainings
The Media Council implemented a capacity-building program for four newsrooms, providing 12 hours of training on gender-sensitive reporting. Trainings included BBC 50:50’s tracking templates, which manually counted the number of women and men sources across content. With the use of these tracking templates, journalists not only realized their reliance on male sources, but also their reliance on newsmakers rather than personal experience or expert source types. These exercises served as a first step to acknowledging the issue in newsrooms.
These journalist trainings also reached rural and urban communities in Bayan-Ulgii. In collaboration with the UNDP (United Nations Development Programme), media professionals learned about the importance of gender balance in sources, breaking common stereotypes and how to write stories on women’s political participation.
Databases of Expert Sources, Images, and Infographics
The MCM has worked diligently to ensure journalists have access to a wide variety of sources through multiple databases. In 2021, a hackathon was organized during a training to create a database of women experts available for media interviews on a variety of subject. Journalists now have access to over 500 women experts in politics, economic, technology, mining and agriculture, as well as a list of male sources that can discuss gender issues.
The Council also created an open photo database in collaboration with the Mongolian Press Agency in October 2022. The database serves as a space to organize gender awareness training among photographers and videographers and organize a News for Equality visuals competition and exhibition. Since then, 80 photos of women in politics were collected, which are openly shared with journalists, newsrooms and CSOs to use in future stories.
In collaboration with the Tungaakhui Data Art Studio, the MCM launched an open infographics database to organize open data trainings for News for Equality members. This initiative produces infographics on the topic of women in politics and elections that are also shared with journalists, CSOs and newsrooms across Mongolia.
Impact
Over the past 3 years, the MCM has worked diligently to create a safe community engaging journalists, gender experts and activities. There work has allowed for hundreds of evidence-based stories on women in politics to be covered, along with robust media coverage on campaigns focused on women’s political participation.
Their work also heavily influenced policies in government. Mongolia’s government approved a constitutional amendment increasing the number of seats from 76-136, reintroducing proportional party voting. The gender quota is also expected to increase from 20 to 30% in 2024, and 40% in 2028.
In addition, 10 political parties have pledged to support gender equality, alongside the newly approved Political Party Law which makes regulation more favorable for women and other marginalized groups.
Feedback from Program Participants
“After presenting a study showing that women are underrepresented in the news, I became aware of who to interview. Even though I have worked in the field of gender, I did not notice this before. For now, I set a goal and ensure a gender balance of sources in my stories.”
“Thanks to the newsroom mentorship program, we have launched the “Balance” initiative to maintain the gender balance of our sources. Keeping track of sources helps us to measure, evaluate, and modify our news stories. We also became a partner of the BBC’s 50:50 project.”
“The program helped us achieve a whole new level of professional journalism. We have integrated gender awareness into our newsroom policy. Achieving a gender balance of sources and producing stories to break gender bias and support women’s leadership is at the core of our values”
