Globe public editor: Gender and photo selection

By Sylvia Stead, public editor of The Globe and Mail

Here’s a little quiz.

By Sylvia Stead, public editor of The Globe and Mail

Here’s a little quiz.

An article on four financial advisers asks their advice about putting together a lasting RRSP strategy. Two of them are described as married with children. The other two have no reference to marital status or children.

Can you guess the gender of the first two? You are correct if you said both are women.

If you are going to describe someone’s physical appearance, marital status etc., ask yourself first: Would I do this for a man or, in the case of diversity, would I do this for a different ethnicity or religion?

In this case above, my answer would be no.

To catch up on a few other issues this week:

I have been asked why there was a beautiful wrap cover of the winning Olympic men’s hockey team in the Globe but not the same treatment of the victorious women’s team. The answer is that the paper covered the conclusion to the Games. There was a large (half of the front page) photograph of the winning women the Friday before.

I’m still receiving letters about the photo of a man on fire. Here’s a great one from one reader:

“I was very surprised to read about the criticism levelled at The Globe and Mail for publishing the front-page picture on Feb 19th.

To continue reading this column, please visit theglobeandmail.com, where it was originally published.

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