Women and Men making news

We invite your newsroom to be part of the ‘women and men making news’ campaign which takes place globally 8 March, which is International Women’s Day.

We invite your newsroom to be part of the ‘women and men making news’ campaign which takes place globally 8 March, which is International Women’s Day.

Most media houses celebrate this day by giving the reigns to women journalists to produce the news. This practice was started by Leslely Riddoch, the former assistant editor of the Scotsman. Since 1995, she has edited a special International Women’s Day Scotsman, which infused gender issues normally bypassed by the paper. Riddoch is currently a presenter on BBC Radio Scotland.

The Johannesburg-based Gender Links and the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) in Namibia, are behind the ‘women and men making news’ campaign for not only International Women’s Day but for SADC newsrooms throughout the year.

The Gender and Media Baseline Study published by Gender Links and MISA, which will be launched 7 March in Johannesburg, indicates that the editorial content of the Southern African media, is not gender sensitive. For example, women are identified by their marital status or what they were wearing. In terms of representation in the newsrooms, here are some findings:

80% of reporters that report on disaster/war/conflict are men
78% of print reporters are men
68% of sports reporters are men
50% of reports reporting about children are men
55% of television and radio presenters are men

The Gender and Media Baseline Studies has more figures. We will send you an executive summary before the end of February, which will outline what will be in the study to be launched. In the meantime, for International Women’s Day and all days, your newsroom could strive to have:

? Equal number of men and women as news sources
? Equal number of male and female journalists
? Stories that have no gender stereotypes
? Stories that acknowledge that men and women have opinions of all issues, that every story is a gender story
? Self assessment by the media of gender bias

The Gender Media and Baseline Study will help media houses with tangible figures necessary to improve media transformation, which has already begun in some newsrooms.

As a journalist, news editor or sub-editor, it will be worth your while to come to the 7 March launch of the Gender Media and Baseline Study because it will be preceded by a workshop that will discuss the reasons for the study; how and where it took place and the way forward for the region.

Thank you for supporting the ‘women and men making the news’ campaign. We will give you the venue of the launch before the end of February.

For more information, call Nonqaba Msimang or Alice Kwaramba at Gender Links, (011) 622-2877.