Women are marginalized in news. In fact, 80% of TV interviews are dedicated to men and only 23% of the expert sources that are quoted in print and digital news are female. In Ecuador, the numbers are even lower, as it is estimated that only 12% of expert voices quoted in newspapers are female. Metro, a global newspaper with distribution in 23 countries, wanted to change this.

We created We Speak, a platform that gathers expert women from different areas of expertise and makes them visible for journalist to quote them on their articles. To reinforce the campaign, we implemented an equality icon that measures and tracks the percentage of male and female voices, quoted as expert sources in Metro Ecuador.

We wanted to reflect a reality that our readers didn't know. By recognizing that we are part of the problem and at the same time offering a solution with our database platform, we began to champion the fight for achieving gender equality. We set a precedent in the Ecuadorian media industry and became a reference for our readers and other media outlets with a positive message that was delivered through our own newspaper with a full-page commitment ad and the implementation of a quite meter that tracks and reflect the percentage of male and female voices quoted in our content.

First, we created our web platform by displaying our own expert female sources in the database (eventually any women could request to join and be validated). Then we ran a full-page ad in our paper, stating our commitment to bridge the gap on gender equality. On the same day we implemented an equality meter that tracks and reflects the percentage of male and female experts quoted in our pages. The meter is printed once a month.

We managed to raise the presence of female expert voices in our content from 11% to 33%. More than 160.000 readers were reached when we implemented the equality meter.

+4 million Ecuadorian professional women can be potentially validated in our web platform, to become expert sources for any medium.