ABSTRACT

Media reporting of violence against women (VAW) has the potential to contribute to improving the community’s understanding and response to this social problem. However, journalists are not immune to gender biases and myths concerning VAW. Both can affect how the subject is framed. We look at an Australian training programme implemented to improve VAW news reporting practices such as including social context, family violence experts and help-seeking information for survivors, challenging myths and avoiding perpetrator exoneration and victim-blaming. We compare journalists’ reporting before and after training and also compare the trained reporters’ content with a matched comparison sample written by untrained journalists to see if training translates into best practice reporting. We conclude that reportage practices have improved overall in recent years and that the training model, in which participants were selected to take part, appears to be effective in improving some key elements of best practice reporting, but some areas of concern remain. We recommend more targeted programmes with curriculum additions to better address some reporting deficiencies we identify.

摘要

媒体对暴力侵害妇女行为 (VAW) 的报道有可能有助于提高社区对这一社会问题的理解和反应。然而，记者也不能幸免于有关 VAW 的性别偏见和神话。两者都会影响拍摄对象的构图方式。我们着眼于澳大利亚实施的一项培训计划，该计划旨在改善 VAW 新闻报道实践，例如包括社会背景、家庭暴力专家和幸存者寻求帮助的信息、挑战神话以及避免肇事者开脱和指责受害者。我们比较记者在培训前后的报道，并将受过培训的记者的内容与未受过培训的记者撰写的匹配比较样本进行比较，以查看培训是否转化为最佳实践报道。我们得出的结论是，近年来报告文学实践总体上有所改善，而且选择参与者参加的培训模式似乎在改进最佳实践报告的一些关键要素方面是有效的，但仍然存在一些令人担忧的领域。我们推荐更有针对性的计划，增加课程，以更好地解决我们发现的一些报告缺陷。