On International Women’s Day - March 8 - your newsroom is invited to take part in the "Women and Men Making News" campaign organised by the Gender Links organisation and the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA). During the campaign, women journalists are given the reigns to produce the news of your newspaper for a time period spanning from a day to one week.

In the long-term, your newsroom is also invited to strive for: * Equal number of men and women as news sources * Equal number of male and female journalists * Stories that have no gender stereotypes * Stories that acknowledge that men and women have opinions on all issues, that every story is a gender story * Self assessment by the media of gender bias

A study, called "The Gender and Media Baseline Study", conducted by Gender Links and MISA, which will be launched on March 7, indicates that the editorial content of the Southern African media is not gender biased. For example, women are identified by their marital status or what they were wearing. In terms of representation in the newsrooms, here are some findings:

80% of reporters that report on disaster/war/conflict are men 78% of print reporters are men 68% of sports reporters are men 50% of reporters that report about children are men 55% of television and radio presenters are men

For more information on "Women and Men Making News", contact rap21@wan.asso.fr