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.”
The first global report of its kind, to which the Guardian was given exclusive access before its launch on 18 April, analysed Jeffery Epstein-related coverage from 2017 to February 2026. Out of nearly 1m Epstein-related articles, the term “violence against women” was present in a mere 0.1% of them, while 25% mentioned “victims” and 26% referenced “power”, “money”, “elites” or “corruption”.
The analysis also identified a failure to address the structural nature of misogyny that enables abuse through long-standing prejudices and power imbalances.
Luba Kassova, lead author of the report, said: “What we concluded by doing this analysis is that the gender-inequality lens is all but missing from coverage of the Epstein story. This means that news coverage does not get to the root causes of the problem.”
The high incidence of sexual violence in many countries is not matched by higher levels of news coverage, and the decline in coverage is overlooking, or at worst ignoring, a profound and desperate need among its audiences, the report said.
One in nine women worldwide have experienced violence from men in the last 12 months and one in three women have been subject to physical or sexual violence in their lifetime. Because admitting to having been sexually abused is difficult and taboo, the reality is probably much worse.
As the world becomes increasingly digital, the spaces and methods for perpetrating gender-based violence are expanding and proliferating at an alarming rate. Millions of women and girls are affected by online violence…
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