Gender, Equality and Diversity Chapter: Toolkit for Latin American Digital Media Outlets

"Undoubtedly, discrimination, harassment and gender-based violence have a negative impact not only on the person who suffers them, but on the entire organization, affecting the work environment and creating a hostile space that undermines a good workplace."

This guide offers practical tools and a theoretical framework for digital media in Latin America to develop internal protocols and policies that ensure a work environment free of gender-based violence and discrimination. It also offers content guidance to assist in reporting on gender and diversity issues.  

The guide was produced for the Velocidad programme by the Asociación Civil Comunicación para la Igualdad and SembraMedia in alliance with the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) and with the support of Luminate. Velocidad, which was implemented from 2019 to 2022, was a media accelerator programme for digital media in Latin America. The goal of the project was to promote the sustainability and growth of local journalism outlets that are either digital native media or have a growth strategy focused on digital media, and whose focus is on quality journalism, editorial independence, and covering topics of public interest. Ten news organisations were selected to receive grants, plus six months of intensive mentoring and training. This gender-focused guide forms part of the capacity-building process.  

The Velocidad project is based on the belief that to achieve gender equality in society, media organisational practices are as relevant as the content generated by each outlet. Media organisations should, therefore, be promoted as spaces free of discrimination in general, and sexism in particular.  

The guide is based on the work experience of the private and public sector and on regional and international human rights legislation. It is not intended to be prescriptive, but it is hoped that in the medium and long terms, the media organisations using it will come as close as possible to the suggested recommendations.

The guide contains the following sections:  

1. Guide of principles for equality-committed media organisations - This section offers guidelines to help media organisations become inclusive and free of discrimination and sexism. Guidelines include, for example, issues around infrastructure and logistics within an organisation, budgeting, recruitment, training, and assigned roles in a media organisation.
2. Protocol for prevention and action against discrimination, harassment, and gender-based violence in the workplace - This section looks at the characteristics of discrimination and harassment in the workplace and offers standardised procedures and generic guidelines related to how an organisation should intervene when confronted with gender-based discrimination, harassment, or violence.
3. Guide for content with a gender, equality, and diversity approach - This section includes a series of keys terms for implementing the gender perspective in a comprehensive and cross-cutting way, based on a feminist approach to communication and an intersectional approach to human rights issues, anti-racism, anti-colonialism, and gender diversity. For example, it looks at terms such as symbolic violence, gender stereotypes, and sexism and androcentrism. The section also proposes gender-related content based on what the guide calls the "urgent agenda", which are topics considered essential related to feminism and diversity that media today should include in order to promote a more equal society. The discussion also looks at how to cover these themes from a gender perspective, current debates within feminism, and additional resources to dive deeper into each topic.
4. General resources