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Shari Graydon

Founder & Catalyst, Informed Opinions

Shari Graydon, Founder & Catalyst, Informed Opinions

 

Women currently make up just 27% of all voices quoted in the Canadian media — just 5% higher than two decades ago. While the story itself sometimes dictates who gets quoted (the company spokesperson; the individual victimized by crime), journalists often have choice in the experts they ask to provide context or analysis, and those people remain overwhelmingly male. Shari Graydon is aiming to change that with the non-profit organization she founded, Informed Opinions. With a mission to amplify the voices of women in the media, they have a goal of achieving gender balance by 2025 — but you can’t fix what you can’t measure. The solution: The Informed Opinions’ Gender Gap Tracker, built in partnership with Simon Fraser University, and officially launched in February 2019. It measures the ratio of female to male sources quoted in online news coverage across some of Canada’s most influential national news outlets, and provides real-time results, readily available on their website.