The Wole Soyinka Centre for Journalism (WSCIJ) has launched a report that reveals the shocking gender disparity in newsrooms in Nigeria, demanding intentional bridging of these gaps.
The centre, in a report tagged, “Who leads the newsrooms and news? A report on women’s representation in newsrooms and news leadership in Nigeria” brings to the fore the reality of the ongoing conversations across the globe on issues relating to gender disparity in the media industry.
The report presents findings from a study that examined the extent of gender representation in newsrooms and news leadership roles across various Nigerian media organisations.
The study was carried out with funding support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, under the Report Women! News and Newsroom Engagement project, as a tool of engagement with the staff and management of media houses.
An excerpt of the report states thus:
“The study revealed that women’s representations in media leadership are low across the four media genres.
Women accounted for 25.7% of leadership positions, while men dominated with 74.3%. Print and online platforms exhibited the lowest representation of women at 4.6% and 5.5%, respectively, while radio and television showed slightly better representation at 9.2% and 6.5%, respectively
The centre said, “Geographically, the Southwest and North-Central had the most women in leadership positions, but they ranked lowest in percentage representation. ”
“The Northwest and South-South led in gender-balanced leadership with 31.2% and 28.5% representation, respectively.”
Similarly, in terms of news representation, the study discovered that women were inadequately represented. Only 24% of anchors and authors were women, with men making up 76%.
Men also dominated as expert resource persons or guests, comprising 87.9%, while women constituted just 12.1%. Furthermore, only 7.1% of news focused on women, while 92.9% covered other angles.
According to the WSCIJ, “to foster a more diverse and equitable media landscape, proactive measures are needed to enhance gender inclusivity and empower women within the industry.”
The Director of the Daily Trust Foundation, Dr. Theophilus Abbah, who reviewed the 90-page research documents, opined that they provided evidence of the lopsidedness of the media industry.
He also stressed that “it holds a mirror to the face of media owners, media executives, and newsroom leaders, showing an error that needs to be corrected and mistake of gender imbalance in the news business. ”
Abbah suggested that “the research has made several recommendations, which are relevant. It’s a call on media organisations to be deliberate in ensuring that more women are given leadership roles in the newsroom and more female newsmakers are sourced and featured in the news.”
He continued that “other recommendations are to implement gender parity policies, improve representation of women in news reporting, increase female expert sources, promote gender-sensitive reporting, and engage stakeholders.”
Deputy Editor of The Eagle Online, Ms. Juliana Francis, a member of the team of journalists and media managers who collected data on the gender composition of the board and management of 111 media organisations that gave birth to the report, said she was proud to be part of it, despite challenges encountered while gathering the data.”
She opined that the very detailed report was designed to push for increased representation of women in news coverage and newsroom leadership.”
She further said: “This report is a reality of what many of us have been debating for years now: the under-presentation of women, not just in our newsrooms but in leadership positions.
“This report can now be used to engage the leadership of media organisations, pushing for an increase in the representation of women in news coverage and newsroom leadership. “
