Gender in Media Training – a Southern African toolkit

“Gender in Media Training: A Southern African Tool KitÀ provides media educators with the skills and arguments to overcome the many familiar obstacles to gender mainstreaming expressed by media trainers.

Over the years I have come to realise that:
– Any attempt to mainstream gender in reporting must acknowledge that the media is traditionally conservative and as a result, resist change;
– The general impression people have is that gender is synonymous with women, and that when a column or page is created to deal with gender, people expect it to focus on women’s issues that will be read only by women, nothing more;
– In the African press, attempts to mainstream gender in editorial coverage have been restricted to by-lined columns;
– Because the media in Africa was born out of political experience, their coverage is essentially political;
– Men who write about gender are treated with suspicion and often accused by other men of having “sold outÀ to the women’s movement;
– Mainstreaming gender in editorial coverage must be a management decision that has the full backing of the gatekeepers in the newsroom;
– “Gender is not an editorial priority and is considered a donor-inspired fad which will soon disappear.À
Edem Djokotoe, Media Training Manager, ZAMCOM, quoted in “Reporting Gender in Southern Africa, A Media GuideÀ

“Gender in Media Training: A Southern African Tool KitÀ provides media educators with the skills and arguments to overcome the many familiar obstacles to gender mainstreaming expressed by trainers like ZAMCOM’s Djokotoe. The tool kit arises from an expressed need by media trainers in the region for such a product, as well as from the experience gained in a pilot project run by the IAJ and GL to mainstream gender in in-service media training in 2001. It consists of 125 exercises and examples in every area of media training. A must have for trainers and lecturers in this field.