On September 27th, Equal Press hosted Shari Graydon of Informed Opinions for an exciting and intimate workshop on media engagement. The workshop was tailored specifically to women and gender-diverse experts in the fields of gender and gender-based violence (GBV) who want to increase their effectiveness in engaging with the media. With 12 experts in attendance, we discussed topics from pitching story ideas to controlling an interview to effectively crafting a key message. Shari then gave opportunities for 4 attendees to participate in a mock interview, which was filmed and then analyzed with the group.
Feedback from the participants was overwhelmingly positive, and many indicated interest in further and more in-depth training. In just a short 4-hour workshop, all attendees indicated that they felt better equipped to respond to interview requests. It is evident from the response that training on media engagement is something that is needed in the fields of gender and GBV.
Equal Press’ objective is to amplify women and gender-diverse voices in the news media, especially on topics of gender and GBV. To do so, it is imperative to train and boost media engagement skills among experts in those areas. The project has already received requests from other local organizations to hold additional media training workshops. We were thrilled to be able to partner with Shari in September, and hope to be able to facilitate some more training opportunities with her before the end of our project!
Equal Press
Equal Press is a project of MOSAIC that seeks to address how local news media represents gender and gender-based violence. The project applies an intersectional lens which takes into account the diversity of class, race, and sexuality in the community, and endeavours to help journalists integrate a trauma-informed approach into their work. Equal Press also works to amplify underrepresented voices in the media through their database of local women and gender-diverse experts on gender and gender-based violence.
Informed Opinions
Informed Opinions is a charitable non-profit building women’s leadership through media engagement. They are working to bridge the gender gap in Canadian public discourse by 2025. Informed Opinions delivers keynote presentations and highly-rated workshops that train and motivate women to translate their expertise into online, print and broadcast commentary. Through their expert women online database, they make it easier for journalists and conference programmers to find qualified female sources willing to share their insights and analysis on critical issues facing communities and the world at large.
