Class and gender are top DEI concerns for Asian journalists: AAJA

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A survey of Asia's newsrooms by the Asian-American Journalists Association sponsored by Meta, has revealed that class and gender are considered the most important diversity issues by journalists. 70% of respondents felt socio-economic status and class were most important for news media to focus on, followed by gender and sexual orientation (68%), race and ethnicity (61%) and religion (41%). Priorities, however, naturally differed by market as shown in the graphic above. 

The report surveyed 1,226 media professionals at 198 companies in seven different Asia-Pacific markets. Respondents were 91% citizens of markets surveyed, 58% female, with Chinese (32%) and English (31%) the top languages used in the survey.

Other findings: 

• Mental illness, disabilities and sexual orientation deserve a strong focus in Asia's news media: 77% of journalists never or only occasionally reported on people with mental illness, 71% on people with disabilities and 65% on people whose sexual orientation differed from theirs.
• Asia's newsrooms are not exempt from discrimination: 22% of journalists reported encountering disparaging comments about a person's age, 21% about gender, 19% about sexual orientation.
• Sexual harassment of women journalists is prevalent: 56% of female respondents reported receiving sexist remarks or sexual innuendos at their news outlet. 41% received unwanted physical contact from sources or newsmakers. 
• Journalists are particularly exposed on social media platforms: 76% have received derogatory comments on social media and 53% received the same by email.