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GUESTS: Daisy Hernandez is the Senior writer at Color lines Magazine, and Laura Zimmerman is the co-founder and director of the Center for New Words

Women constitute 52 per cent of the world’s population but made up only 21 per cent of people in the news. That’s the conclusion of a recent worldwide study on women in the media. Incidentally, women are most under-represented in radio where they are only 17 per cent of news subjects compared to 22 per cent in TV and 21 per cent in newspapers. The United Nations Development Fund for Women has endorsed the research, to help promote gender equality in the media. Only 14% of all news subjects covering government and politics are women and only 4% of news stories highlight gender inequality. Joining me on the phone today are two dynamic newsmakers based in the US. Daisy Hernandez is the Senior writer at Color lines Magazine, and Laura Zimmerman is the co-founder and director of the Center for New Words, which is organizing a conference later this month called Women, Action, and the Media: Making Noise, Making Change.

For more information, visit www.colorlines.com, and www.centerfornewwords.org.

The Women, Action and the Media conference will take place March 31-April 2, 2006 in Cambridge, MA. Click here to register.