Analysis finds stories citing terms of misogynistic abuse fell to 1.3% of global online news in 2025
Media coverage of violence against women and girls and misogynistic harassment is at a “pitiful” low, despite a proliferation of high-profile cases of men abusing women and children, and a rise in AI-assisted violence against women and girls, new research shows.
An analysis of 1.14bn online stories published worldwide between 2017 and 2025 found that the proportion of articles that include terms relating to misogynistic abuse dropped to a “dismal” 1.3% of all global online news in 2025, the lowest level in that period. Coverage peaked at 2.2% in 2018, the height of the #MeToo movement. In Africa, where multiple conflicts have involved extreme levels of sexual violence, coverage sank to a nine-year low of 1.18% in 2024.
“It is shocking, particularly considering the scale of the problem and the ways in which violence against women and misogyny have been weaponised by authoritarian actors as part of the rollback of rights,” said Prof Julie Posetti, the chair of the Centre for Journalism and Democracy at City St George’s, University of London. “It signals a failure by the press … how little progress we’ve made and how far we have to go.”
