by Alice Watkins Hacked Off have today published a new report featuring expert perspectives on misogyny in the press. This report follows a meeting in Parliament, which was hosted by Hacked Off in partnership with the Fawcett Society, which heard from a range of individuals with knowledge or lived experience on the need to act on press misogyny and mis-reporting around gender-based violence. Misogyny in the press is widespread. Our guest speakers covered issues including the reporting of fatal domestic abuse, the highly personalised scrutiny of women in public life, and the impact of language, images and sexist stereotypes. “The press plays a vital role in holding the powerful to account and can be a crucial ally in the fight for a fair and just society - including on the issue of gender equality” said Caroline Nokes MP, who provided the report’s foreword.She continued, “However there have been too many occasions when newspaper reporting has fallen short. “No one expects an easy ride in politics. But it’s reasonable to expect to be judged on performance, rather than appearance. There are also concerns about how cases of domestic violence are reported on, which domestic violence advocates argue, could put more women at risk of abuse.”“Civil society and individuals with a lived experience of press misogyny all have a role to play in improving press reporting on these important issues.”The first contributor was Melanie Sykes, an author and speaker. She has over twenty years of experience in the entertainment industry. In more recent years Melanie has been using her profile to raise awareness about the impact of misogyny in the media, by sharing her personal experiences.Melanie was first to address the packed room of MPs, giving a powerful testimony of the misogyny which has been directed at her through the tabloids - specifically The Sun - spanning her career of over 20 years. She said that The Sun’s mission to spew misogyny continues to affect more than half the country’s population, leaving women’s health and society in grave danger. “I was named Maneater Mel at the start. They hassled me throughout my pregnancies. And once I decided to end my unhappy marriage, they published that I was divorcing my husband because he didn’t earn enough money, even though I was a breadwinner and was getting out of a situation that was not good for me. Before the ink was dry on my divorce papers, the slut shaming returned and the money hungry slur was back.”In recent months, Melanie has been accused of writing about men to sell her book.She told the room, “I did agree to a Guardian interview six weeks ago with a female journalist who had read my book and wanted to talk to me about the writing process and the positive messages to women in her book.”She added, “When it was published the next day, none of the above messaging was mentioned, the journalist even messaged her to apologise - as the article had been taken from her and edited to now include a clickbait misleading headline that Melanie had left TV for a man.”“They get women journalists as bait to get a quote which, in their eyes, validates the printing of the ‘story’. Or worse: they get women writers to do their dirty work for them.”The next contributors were the award winning presenters of Media Storm, a podcast which investigates mainstream media coverage. Their work highlights misleading reports and gives right of reply to marginalised groups. The podcast hosts Helena Wadia and Mathilda Mallinson shared their key findings from their recent monitoring of domestic violence stories in the press. They say there is new evidence of inaccurate reporting every day. “Only recently, look at the example of Emma Pattison; murdered by her husband, but with coverage which appeared to blame her success for her own murder, with the newspapers suggesting that her husband killed her because he was jealous of her career, and she should - we are left to assume - have realised her place was at home.”They also discussed examples of the dangerous use of images in news articles, and urged journalists to centre images used in coverage on the victim - from approved photos provided by the victim’s family or friends or alternatively the police. They also spoke about the appropriate use of language when it comes to reporting on fatal domestic homicides, referencing a particularly crass article in The Times, published in May: ‘Disbelief at ‘kind and gentle’ fiance linked to murder of primary school teacher Marelle Sturrock. A good first step to improve misogynistic coverage in this area would be changing the Editors’ Code of Practice for journalists to include guidelines on fatal domestic abuse reporting. This is something Hacked Off has campaigned on.Another contributor, Hacked Off Board Director Jacqui Hames, told the meeting, “Although we are not the experts on the issues of misogyny or domestic violence reporting, we do believe that newspapers should listen to those organisations which are. That's how coverage will improve - by the press listening to the experts, and also by having a framework of regulation which ensures the interests of women are properly protected. They could start by following guidelines issued by Level Up, who in 2018, as experts on domestic violence reporting developed guidelines in consultation with academics in the field and victims' families”.Despite acknowledging Level Up guidelines, the editors who wrote the Editors’ Code have so far refused to update it.It’s no real surprise. The press complaints handler “IPSO” is far from independent. IPSO has only ever upheld one complaint of sexism in the press in its entire history. And this was only after a Sun article sparked overwhelming public outrage, when it published an article detailing Jeremy Clarkson’s dream for Meghan Markle to be attacked in the street.From IPSO’s record, one can only assume, they think that there is no such thing as misogyny in the press, or it’s not in their interest to acknowledge it. Having said that, even if the code used by IPSO was more robust, we would still need a regulator which is more independent, and more effective when it comes to enforcing standards.It is not enough to be able to prove an article was sexist. There also needs to be proper sanctions, and consequences for the publisher.That’s why Hacked Off continues to call for newspapers to join an independent, Leveson compliant regulator, like IMPRESS - which has already gone further than the national newspaper press complaints handler IPSO, by changing their code of standards. Contributor Lexie Kirkconnell-Kawana, IMPRESS’ CEO, said at the event, “At Impress we recognise this pervasive and systematic way discrimination can be perpetuated. We changed the rules of our code to allow us to interrogate discriminatory practices against groups of people”.Lexie also explained how media sexism is perpetuated in other ways. She said, “sexist descriptions of gender roles and gender stereotyping, framing that minimises women and girls experiences of abuse, poor and inaccurate reporting of subject specific areas such as criminal justice, private and family life and workplace and employment.”She continued, “The obvious effect of these unchecked practices is reinforcement of public attitudes. For example: hyper sexualisation and infantilisation of women and girls, which lead to worse outcomes for women in all aspects of private and public life.”“But membership of IMPRESS is voluntary and only publishers or journalists that align with those values choose to join and adhere to our robust standards on sex and gender reporting.”Until fatal domestic violence reporting guidelines are reflected in a standards code which is properly enforced, by a truly independent press regulator which national newspapers must sign up to, then press reporting is unlikely to improve. Hacked Off board member Jacqui Hames said, “Without press reform victims will be further victimised, over and above that which they have already endured.”Jacqui says, “if the government is serious about dismantling misogyny it must do more to tackle discriminatory reporting which reinforces negative societal narratives.”What can legislators do to help raise standards? Support the introduction of incentives or compulsion, to get all major newspapers into an independent, Leveson-style regulator, in Jacqui’s view.Jacqui explained, “there is no legislative vehicle for this before the Commons right now, but there will probably be one later in this Parliament, with the Media Bill, or perhaps in the next Parliament. When we have the opportunity to fix the problems with press accountability, it's important that legislators take it”.Victims and their families deserve better protection from abusive, sensationalised or unethical press coverage.