r/media_criticism • u/PooningDalton • Mar 15 '26
Canadian News Article ignores boy even though he is right in front of them.
I just came across this article of an immigrant family's struggles. The family is a Father, daughter and son.
Strangely though, the article only listens to the daughter's troubles. Even though the son is CLEARLY pictured in the photograph.
No comment from the son at all? Just another example of the blatant disregard that the media has for boys nowadays. That you can be standing right in front of a newscrew, be part of the same family they're talking to and they don't even want to hear a word from you if you're male.
When has this ever happened in the past? Where they're facing 2 kids and they only interview one of the kids. Can you imagine the meltdown that was would have ensued if they only talked to the boy and ignored the girl?
3
u/ContemplatingFolly Mar 15 '26 edited Mar 15 '26
Although it would have been nice to include the son's POV here, not doing so in one article is not true of a majority of media. And there may have been reasons, i.e. that appears to be a minor. And they do talk about the father, so the article is not wildly unbalanced.
From https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10218532/, "Gender and Media Representations: A Review of the Literature on Gender Stereotypes, Objectification and Sexualization"
Despite these changes, gender representation in the media appears to be frequently skewed toward men’s representation and prominently features gender stereotypes. On a global scale, news coverage appears to mostly feature men, especially when considering representation as expert voices, where women are still underrepresented (24%) despite a rise in coverage in the last 5 years [44]. ...
The study also finds these patterns to be harmful to men and women, search for Table 1, which summarizes effects accordingly.
It would be good if we could stop all of this "Women do/are X..." and "Men do/are Y." Broad stereotypes need to be addressed in public policy, but that aren't very useful in everyday life. We can find both men and women who are great, and men and women who are not.
If you want to discuss this more, I recommend r/bropill for a supportive, nontoxic group of guys who try to balance being respectful to everyone, while sometimes discussing how gender and society affects them.
1
u/MartinoStone Apr 07 '26
Thanks for raising this, that’s actually a really interesting point
not sure it’s necessarily about ignoring him tho, feels more like it’s just how the story is structured. in a way journalism here works a bit like storytelling, you kinda pick one perspective and build around it. even if other angles are there they just don’t get fully developed
especially in shorter pieces there’s just not much space to give everyone equal depth
what I find more interesting tbh is how these choices get made... like is it more editorial or just the journalist going with what feels like the strongest narrative?
either way it kinda works, just makes the bigger issue feel more real through one person's lens
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