JMI report on election coverage says women underrepresented

AMMAN — The Jordan Media Institute (JMI) on Monday released its final report on media coverage of the September 20 parliamentary elections. 

In a project funded by USAID, the JMI monitored election coverage in 20 media outlets, including local newspapers, radio stations and TV channels, the JMI said in a statement. 

According to the report, 11,413 elections-related items were published or broadcast between August 15 and September 27, around 70 per cent of which were news items, while 30 per cent were opinion pieces.

The JMI observed a qualitative and quantitative improvement in media coverage, despite some issues with advertising published as journalism. 

The highest output — 56 per cent of items — came from daily newspapers, the institute said. 

Meanwhile, 57 per cent of coverage in print media was neutral, 21.5 per cent positive and 21 per cent negative. 

Women were underrepresented in newspapers, featured in only 7.2 per cent of the news items, the study said. 

On the radio stations covered by the study, 1,783 pieces on the elections were broadcast, according to the JMI.

Radio stations tended to rely on one source in their coverage, with 53.7 per cent of the broadcast reports citing only a single source. Some 25.9 per cent of the pieces quoted two or more sources.

In terms of topics, 68 per cent of the reports focused on general national topics, while only 5.8 per cent were concerned with women's issues.

Similarly, women's presence in the 1,585 surveyed TV reports was low (6.1 per cent), especially when compared to men (72.6 per cent).

In 1,610 online media reports published on the elections, 5.5 per cent involved women, compared with 63.4 per cent involving men.