DIVERSITY
3 QUESTIONS TO
JESSICA LOPEZ
DEPUTY IN THE CHIEF EDITOR'S DEPARTMENT,
DIVERSITY EDITOR
Why was this new job created in 2022?
At the end of 2021, Global News Director Phil Chetwynd and
Global Chief Editor Sophie Huet handed me a six-month
project to recommend ways of boosting the representation
of women and improving how we cover diversity issues in
all AFP content. To do this, I spoke with journalists and ma-
nagers across the Agency, media experts, and journalists at
other media to understand what actions were being taken
elsewhere. I then drew up a report suggesting various ways
of improving how we do things. One of the proposals was
to create a job within the central chief editors’ team, al-
lowing a big-picture view of all our global coverage and
close coordination with text, photo and video editors in all
AFP regions.
Management decided to create this job and I applied for it,
so I could carry on the work from the previous six months.
I started in September 2022. I try to keep on top of all AFP
coverage linked to male-female equality and social, ethnic
or gender diversity. I also look at issues related to disabi-
lity, age discrimination, etc. I take part in the daily editorial
conferences, speak to bureaux, and coordinate packages
of stories on these topics. I am also a member of the Diver-
sity Committee established in 2021 to improve diversity
within our own teams
My goal is to be seen as a point person on these issues
At the same the central chief editors are encouraging
concrete actions to improve diversity in our coverage we
have set up training sessions conduct regular editorial
webinars and update styleguides where necessary
These are topics that are constantly evolving We have to
remain open to the debates underway in our societies wi
thout taking an ideological position ourselves What unites
us is our profession
We need to be vigilant on how we describe people the
words we use the images we use the people we quote so
we can give a better and more balanced reflection of the
world we live in This is the core of our work as journalists
and also a key demand of clients
Did AFP provide a better picture of social
reality in 2022?
The Agency has been working for several years on ways of
better portraying women and diversity. Already in 2017,
even before the #MeToo movement took off, then Global
News Director Michele Leridon commissioned a report from
two journalists, Aurelia End and Pauline Talagrand, on how
women were represented in AFP production. From this re-
port came several changes to our editorial guidelines and
also an investigation into AFP content led by media sociolo-
gist Marlene Coulomb-Gully. Her work showed that women
are only mentioned in 24 percent of our stories in French
and represent only 20 percent of the experts we cite. We
also pulled together data, using an algorithm developed in
conjunction with the London School of Economics and other
media, that showed women appear in one in five pictures on
the photo wire. This is a huge discrepancy when you think
that women represent 50 percent of the population.
These studies date from 2020 and I would like to believe the
figures have improved since then because we are paying
more attention to the way we talk about women, pushing
for more diversity in the experts we quote and film, and the
angles we choose This is not about quoting women just
for the sake of quoting women News value should always
come first But we have to allow women and minorities to
play other roles in the media active decisionmaking roles
not just the roles of victims maternal figures or activists
And they do exist
So this is a longterm project and difficult to quantify Ne
vertheless we can say that we are more conscious of the
importance of these issues today and I hope this will only
accelerate in the future
We have already notched up some successes AFP won an
award in 2022 for its coverage of womens sport and equa
lity in sport from the Alice Milliat foundation named after
a French sportswoman who fought for womens rights in
sport a century ago
At the end of 2022 Forbes Magazine cited AFP as one of the
top 10 French companies for sexual equality and the best
global media
How can we make even more progress in
terms of diversity
By talking more about it sharing ideas debating the issues
in a balanced way not holding back when suggesting story
ideas staying aware of the world around us and going out
to find people to speak to that are rarely seen in media but
have so much to offer in our production
In terms of the portrayal of women in our content which is
something we can measure we are aiming for 30 percent
To achieve this we could make use of an algorithm that
measures how often women are mentioned in our cove
rage We have a partnership with a team of researchers from
Sciences Po Grenoble which has developed a tool that au
tomatically tracks how often women are cited in the media
mainly via pronouns and professions and we are going to
continue along this path
At the same time we have several editorial working groups
especially on the topic of identity and ethnicity which are
increasingly in the news We are also looking at questions
linked to gender and sexual orientation which always
spark debate We need clear guidelines on these issues Its
something journalists are very keen to have
We are planning to organise editorial webinars on all these
topics to mesh them with ontheground experience
And finally diversity in our content goes handinhand with
greater diversity in our staff Our Diversity Committee run
by Claudia Rahola and made up of around 15 AFP staff from
around the world is working on several issues for 2023
"At the end of 2022, Forbes Magazine cited AFP as one of the top 10 French
companies for sexual equality and the best global media."
Un millier de personnes forment un drapeau du pro-
grès humain sur les marches de l’Opéra pour marquer le
44
e
anniversaire du Mardi Gras gay et lesbien de Sydney,
le 24 juin 2022. © Saeed Khan / AFP