Six more journalists you should follow for International Women's Day

Last year, I took the opportunity of International Women's Day (and yes, Bex, I do remember our conversation about the slight dodgy roots of the “official” version of it…) to recommend six journalists you should follow on Twitter to mark the day.

Six journalists you should follow on International Women’s Day

Get more smart female voices in your Twitter timeline.

One Man & His BlogAdam Tinworth

It's time to do it again.

Why's this a day late, Adam?

I was going to post this yesterday, on the actual International Women's Day. But as I looked at social media, I could see more men talking about women than women talking about themselves. So I decided to shut the hell up and let women speak yesterday, and postpone my piece until today.

So, here it is: my second annual list of six women whom you should follow (just after) International Women's Day.

The rules

• They must work in or around journalism.
• I must find what they are doing genuinely inspiring or interesting
• They must have fewer Twitter followers than me.
• [NEW] No more than two colleagues or two former students

Vera Penêda

Vera is the Director of Programmes & Impact at the European Journalism Centre. The work the organisation is doing is great and much needed, and Vera does a great job of promoting it. In particular, I miss their Impact Summits, which I haven't managed to get to in person since before the pandemic. Next time…

She's a low volume tweeter, but every Tweet is useful. For example:

Twitter — LinkedIn

Charlotte Henry

How the ever-living f**k does Charlotte have fewer followers than me?

She writes great media analysis, knows her Mac tech and certainly knows way more about sport than I do. C'mon, she's an essential follow, and her newsletter is an essential subscribe.

Twitter — LinkedIn

Former Students

This year, I've picked two graduates from two different generations of the MA Interactive journalism at City.

Emily Shackleton, Metro

If you want to know why, after a decade of visiting lecturing at City, I finally went on staff part time this year, well, it's because of people like Emily. Nothing gives me greater pleasure than seeing students grow, find their confidence and go on to fantastic careers. And that's just what Emily has done.

As Head of Audience and Product Manager at Metro, she leads a talented team of engagement pros. Like many professionals in this space, she doesn't tweet often, but it's worth following her for when she does.

Twitter — LinkedIn

Carla Abreau, OpenDemocracy

This time last year, Carla was sat in class, listening to me saying the word “attention” over and over again until she was no doubt sick of it. Now? She turns up in my in-box every weekend as the audience engagement manager of OpenDemocracy.

Shamefully, she still has under 200 followers. Fix that, my friends.

Twitter — LinkedIn

Current Colleagues

People who have the misfortune of working with me at City. And I mean misfortune. The last visiting lecturer who taught with me emigrated straight afterwards…

Prof Mel Bunce

Full disclosure: Mel is my boss (for half the week, at least. I'm my own boss the other half). But she has the unenviable task of wrangling a whole department full of journalism academics, two groups whom managing must be like herding cats at best of times, and so are probably even worse when combined….

And yet, she keeps her research going at the same time. A bit like Glenda from last year, I wonder HOW DOES SHE DO IT?

Twitter — LinkedIn

Dr Rana Arafat

Rana was my co-lecturer on an introductory module on digital journalism last year. She's smart, fiercely intelligent and a great researcher. (Yes, I'm a tiny bit scared of her…) In fact, she's a prize-winning one:

If you want to dig beyond mere opinion into true research, she's worth a follow.

Twitter

IWD Reading

Marcela Kunova of journalism.co.uk looks into the sheer volume of threats and harassment that female journalists face in their work.

And was that link to Marcela's profile a sneaky way of breaking my own rules? 😇

Three quarters of women journalists experience threat to their safety

A first-of-its-kind survey of women working in the media revealed how threats, harassment and violence impact their careers and mental health

Journalism.co.ukMarcela Kunova

And Charlotte at Press Gazette wrote on a similar theme:

Online abuse toll means fifth of women journalists considered leaving industry

A fifth of 403 women respondents to a survey by Reach/Women in Journalism said they had considered leaving journalism as a result of abuse.

Press GazetteCharlotte Tobitt

My students at City have been doing some great IWD work:

Women’s experiences in journalism: heads of audience

On this Women’s International Day, we’ve spoken to female digital journalists about their experience working in the newsroom.

InterhacktivesVlada Goriacheva

The Gender Pay Gap at British Newspapers - Interhacktives

Inspired by Twitter’s Gender Pay Gap Bot, we take a look at pay gap at British newspapers this International Women’s Day.

InterhacktivesKatie Jones

7 female data journalists to look our for - Interhacktives

On this International Women’s Day, these 7 female data journalists are making waves with their incredible work

InterhacktivesHyein Jung

And, of course, the good folks at the Reuters Institute had some great research:

Women and leadership in the news media 2023: evidence from 12 markets

In this factsheet we analyse the gender breakdown of top editors in a sample of 240 major news outlets in 12 different markets.

Reuters Institute for the Study of JournalismDr Kirsten Eddy

Did I miss anything?