Has the digital revolution democratized the news? The latest findings from the Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP 2025) for Poland deliver a harsh verdict. Despite the rise of new media, the world we see in the news remains a reality defined, explained, and dominated by men.
The Global Media Monitoring Project is the world’s longest-running longitudinal study on gender equality in the news. The 2025 Polish edition, led by Dr. Greta Gober and Dr. hab. Margaret Ohia-Nowak, offers a wake-up call for newsrooms across the country: progress has not only stalled – in some areas, it has reversed.
The Numbers: A Step Backward
The data is stark. Women now make up only 27% of all subjects and sources in Polish news, a drop from 28% five years ago.
While online media appears more balanced at first glance (32% female visibility compared to 25% in traditional print and broadcast), the report warns against optimism. This digital visibility is often superficial. As the authors highlight, higher numbers online have not translated into real influence or interpretative power.
The Authority Gap: Who Holds the Microphone?
The core issue isn’t just how many women appear, but how they are portrayed. The report identifies a profound authority gap. The division of labor in Polish news is stereotypical and entrenched:
• Men explain the world: They dominate the roles requiring expertise and authority, accounting for 74% of experts and 72% of spokespersons.
• Women experience the world: They are overwhelmingly cast as eyewitnesses (86%) or voices of popular opinion (69%).
The message sent to the audience is clear: knowledge and power have a male face, while women are there to provide emotional color or personal anecdotes.
Invisible and Doubly Sidelined
The report also exposes a major blind spot in Polish journalism: the erasure of women from minority groups. They represent a mere 1.4% of all people in the news.
Minority women face a double periphery. Even when the news focuses on issues directly affecting them, such as migration, they are rarely visible. Instead, the media relies on white voices, where Polish politicians speak for and about migrants, including migrant women, rather than letting them speak for themselves.
When minority women do appear, it is rarely in a serious context. The report cites the spectacle-based visibility mechanism, noting that minority representation was artificially inflated by coverage of the Met Gala, reducing diverse women to entertainment figures rather than serious news subjects.
Does Authority Have an Expiration Date?
Ageism in Polish media has a distinct gender bias. The report reveals that authority matures with men, but expires for women. Men dominate news coverage in the age brackets associated with peak career power (51–64 years old). Women, by contrast, are most visible when they are young (20–30 years old) and largely vanish from screens as they age. In the eyes of the media, a man gains gravitas with age; a woman simply loses visibility.
Beyond the Headcount
The GMMP 2025 findings suggest that simply counting women is no longer enough. A qualitative shift is needed. The report’s recommendations for 2026–2030 call for a move from numerical presence to building real authority. This requires newsrooms to overhaul their daily routines, adopt an intersectional perspective that includes minority voices, and shift the narrative on gender-based violence from sensationalism to a human rights-based approach.
About the Authors and Team
The Polish edition of the report was prepared by national coordinators: Dr. Greta Gober from the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm and Dr. hab. Margaret Ohia-Nowak, Associate Professor from the Institute of Communication and Media Studies from at Maria Curie-Skłodowska University (UMCS) in Lublin.
The monitoring process relied on the dedicated work of the national team, including: Olga Jaśkiewicz, Dominika Kochańczyk, Oskar Krasoń, Anna Kurach, Maria Płatos, and Milena Smolińska.
The full Polish report is available in English here: https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2:2033281
The short version of the Polish report is available in Polish here: https://managingnewsroomdiversity.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/GMMP-2025-Polska-_skrot.pdf
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