Past 24 hours about 71 % of the names and pronouns in US news media are male. That's 2.4 mentions of males for every female.
Percent women over time
Last week buzzfeed.com had the most equal representation of women with about 45 %. Worst were nytimes.com with about 9 %. The current week so far can be viewed below.
Stats for latest 24 hours
Inside parenthesis are the count fraction that the percentage is based on.
Frequently asked questions / Press
Why is this important?
Newspapers shape what we think is important and how we view the world. The current statistics from this tool shows a reality where we think males are two times more important than women. Surely that's not up to date with modern values.
How does the counting work?
Every five minutes the software reads newly published texts on news sites, and counts the number of times it finds male and female names. It also counts pronouns (he/she) and other words that gives evidence for gender (brother, mother...).
How is the gender of a name determined?
With highly detailed official name statistics from the countries we monitor. If a name is used by more than 95 % men/women it's classified to that gender. If it's less, we don't count it.
How certain are the results?
This approach does not have the ability to really understand the text as a human would have. But the results are very close to those done when humans does the counting, as in this report done by Swedish researchers for the project Who Makes the News or this done by Rättviseförmedlingen.
Isn't gender equality about more than visibility in text?
Absolutely. A newspaper featuring 50 % women but only in roles as victims, housekeepers or models would score high, so this is by all means not an in depth analysis. This is just the start of a conversation about representation in media that we need to have.
How does different subsections on papers differ?
Generally the sport section, industry and economy scores low on female mentions. If you want to know the results for your newspapers subsections, get in touch!
Why is X in top of the chart but the tweet's saying Y scored best?
We count how close one is to 50-50 as 'being best'. That means that a paper having 40 % women is better than a paper having 70 % women.
Does the bot read content that's behind a paywall?
Yes, in many cases since paywalls can be tricked by our default settings. But we are also able to give it credentials to your locked down content if you provide us with it.
How do you think a news room should work with gender equality?
The Swedish newspaper ETC has made a list with their main points (in Swedish) in making a newspaper based on gender equal values. That's a start. We'd also be happy to point you in the direction of people that can help you further.
Could our newspaper be added?