Music and entertainment editors ignored the biggest story at the Grammys

The 2026 Grammys should have sparked urgent questions about gender equality in the music industry. Instead, top music and entertainment editors and publications turned a blind eye to the uncomfortable headline story.

AKAS’s Missing Perspectives report series on the Grammys, led by founders Luba Kassova and Richard Addy, found that women’s share of wins plummeted from 37 per cent in 2025 to just 23 per cent this year. This drop, spanning nearly every genre and technical field, should have been a major headline.

It signals a broader cultural problem and a persistent glass ceiling: over the last decade, women have accounted for only one in five nominations and wins. But editors were more preoccupied with the best and worst dressed celebs, highlight reels and winners lists.

Kassova and Addy claimed to have "sent numerous individual emails to music and general entertainment editors of big publications" alerting them to the story. But they received radio silence. Not even an inquiry into the findings.

"What I find particularly worrying is the quiet acceptance of the status quo, both within the music and news industries, manifested in the absence of curiosity and drive to report on this and other statistics that point to social injustice," says Kassova.

It was only the academic news website, The Conversation, that engaged with their findings, which were then recycled by news aggregators like Yahoo and DT.

The deeper issues, like structural barriers, exclusion from key creative roles, and the lack of transparency from the Recording Academy, remain stark and unaddressed by the most authoritative titles commanding the most relevant readerships.

This editorial blind spot is compounded by what Kassova calls a "pro-female publicity bias": the Recording Academy’s outwardly gender-balanced broadcasts and press releases create the illusion of progress, masking the reality of women’s under-representation. Without critical reporting, even industry insiders remain unaware of the true scale of the problem.

Another headline finding illustrates the point: the prestigious Grammy for
'Producer of the Year, Non-classical' has never been awarded to a woman since its
introduction 51 years ago. Moreover, in its half-century history, only 10 women have ever been nominated.

"Unless journalism starts doing what it does best – shining a light on the structural inequalities that constrain women – the music industry will remain deeply gendered, with men holding the precious keys to the most powerful roles while women remain the pretty, glitzy face on the margins of the industry," concludes Kassova.