Journalists from Castilla y León highlight the need to break with the story that trivializes and normalizes male violence

• Zamora hosts the V ‘Media and Gender Violence Day: How to combat the elimination of gender violence from journalism’ promoted by the Delegation of the Government in Castilla y León and the Association of Feminist Journalists of Castilla y León (Apfcyl) • The Subdelegate of the Government of Zamora, Ángel Blanco, highlights the need for the media of Castilla y León to be forceful in the face of male violence • Ana Gaitero, president of the Association of Feminist Journalists of Castilla y León (Apfcyl), highlights the need to put in front the journalistic practices of "gender violence".

November 30, 2023.- Aware that society is the construction of the media, the Government Delegation in Castilla y León with the Association of Feminist Journalists of Castilla y León held this Thursday the fifth edition of the Days of Gender Violence and Media.

Under the slogan ‘How to combat the elimination of gender violence from journalism’, the day has allowed us to highlight the need to change the journalistic narrative around male violence in order to prevent it from continuing to be trivialized and normalized in an “issue in which women have their lives”.

It was the message that journalist Nuria Varela wanted to influence, which highlighted the need to give new approaches to information on violence and gender. “There is only one journalism, the good one. And when we talk about gender violence, we don’t make a good journalist. In other issues we look for the roots, the best sources, we contextualize, we look for responsible and solutions. But when it comes to reporting on gender-based violence, we don’t.”

In this regard, Varela regretted that the media are contributing to the elimination of gender violence, turning it into a show, a superficial issue. “We are helping not only not to decrease, but also to increase gender-based violence. We must deepen, understand what gender violence is and see how it evolves and, from there, attack it.”

A day that was inaugurated by the subdelegate of the Government of Zamora, Ángel Blanco, who has highlighted the need for the media to show forcefully their frontal and social rejection in the face of male violence, at a time when voices are raised that try to mask reality.

In this regard, he recalled the determining role that journalists have with their messages to contribute to changing the sociocultural patterns that reproduce the violence of women. “Journalism must be pedagogical, we must not forget that education can be key to alleviate inequality, sexist stereotypes and social scourges such as gender violence,” he said.

YELLOWNESS

For her part, Ana Gaitero, president of Apfcyl, highlights that with the emergence of voices that seek in the best case to make gender-based violence invisible and in the worst case, directly deny it, a day of this nature and with these speakers "becomes essential".

Independently of respect for the perspectives and way of exercising the profession, there are dynamics in the treatment of news about gender violence that are unquestionable. "Nobody would think of calling into question the use of basic rules when making news about politics or economics, but we find certain media or journalists who interpret the demand for rigour in this information as an intolerable interference," he laments.

In this way, he adds, "we look with sadness at how yellowing continues to ring at its heart in this news, as well as the rejoicing in macabre data that brings nothing but lack of respect to victims and their environment; data as 'enlightening' as if the murderer greeted in the elevator continue to shape the daily media."

"It is paradoxical to witness how in some news reports not a single qualifier is saved for the alleged perpetrator of that violence to immediately give way to a news full of errors, macabre details, stereotypes of victim and victimizer, confusion between gender violence and domestic violence or close-ups of relatives sobbing in the course of a funeral, undoubtedly a surprising fact for unexpected", ironically.

"Modifying these routines is in our hands and we believe that nothing better to achieve it than making a day with women who face this challenge on a daily basis," he adds. "The elimination of gender violence is the way in which it has been perpetuated for centuries," he concludes.

A day in which the head of the Violence against Women Unit of Zamora, Marisa Manso, was present, and which featured the participation of journalists Laura Cornejo and Isabel Valdés, who starred in a conservatory to address the work of the newsrooms in the face of negationism.

The day was completed with a round table that addressed journalists’ networks and new tools to address information from a gender perspective, with the participation of journalists Isabel Escribano, Susana Arizaga and Elena Martín.