Only 24% of the top editors across 240 news outlets in 12 countries are women.
Source: Reuters Institute
The factsheet.Today we published our annual piece of research on women and leadership in the news media. Authored by Amy Ross Arguedas, Mitali Mukherjee and Rasmus Nielsen, the factsheet looks at the gender breakdown of top editors in a strategic sample of 240 major online and offline news outlets in 12 different markets across five continents. These are the three key findings:
The key figures. Only 24% of the 174 top editors across the 240 brands covered are women, just two points more than last year. As the chart above shows, figures vary widely by market. Among the 33 new top editors recently appointed across the brands covered, 24% are women. In all 12 markets, most of the top editors are men, including in countries where women outnumber men among working journalists.
The evolution. Looking across the 10 markets we've covered for five years, the percentage of women has changed from 23% in 2020 to 25% in 2024. At this pace of change, gender parity in top editorial positions won't arrive until 2074. While there are more women in top positions in six countries, we see the same in Mexico (6%) and Japan (0%), and fewer in Germany (from 27% to 25%) and South Africa (47% to 29%).
An imperfect parallel. When we compare the percentage of women working in journalism with the percentage of women in top editorial positions, we find a weak positive correlation. Despite this, in 11 out of 12 markets there are lower percentages of women in top editorial roles than women working as journalists.
