Our Male Dominated Newsrooms

I worked in a newsroom of one of Malawi’s largest daily newspapers, The Daily Times. When I arrived, out of 20 reporters and editors, there was only one female and she was a lowly reporter. The chief reporters, sub-editors and editors were all men.

There was a time when the newsroom was totally male, after the lone female reporter was sacked. Now I hear there are about three female reporters in the same newsroom. It does not seem to bother anyone though. In fact, the male journalists looked at the lack of female reporters in the newsroom with pride. One senior journalist told me with unmistakable glee: “Print journalism is hard work. Women belong to radio and TV.”

Well, he was right in some way. It was hard graft but this was due to limited resources, not because of anything inherently hard with print journalism that Malawian women could not do. Because of lack of transport, reporters sometimes have to walk to and from beats, because of very few computers in the newsroom, reporters have to wait in line and often knock off work late, because of the notion that women can’t make it in the newsroom, The Daily Times has only had a female in a high-ranking editorial position once, perhaps, and that was decades ago. The paper is 120 years old. So promising young female reporters often leave for employment elsewhere or easily get frustrated and lose their shine because of this seemingly unbreakable ceiling above them.

So, the rules of the game as defined by men mean that women are not seen as—and usually do not see themselves as—suited to this form of journalism.

Without a doubt, when it comes to diversity, the composition of a predominantly male newsroom does not at all reflect the state of Malawi’s gender mix. What is troubling is that, apart for the most part, no one seems to think this is a problem.

What has been the result of this composition? A study by The Media Institute of Southern Africa, which examined the composition of African newsrooms and its impact on editorial content, reported that in Zimbabwe only 17% of voices heard in the media are the voices of women. This was because of the domination of male editors. http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/trust/pdf/AMDI/zimbabwe/amdi_zimbabwe4_review.pdf

Interestingly, U.S. newsrooms have the same concerns of male domination—perhaps the difference with my Malawian scenario is that here people do care, they carry regular studies, compile statistics and lobby for change.

A 2001 Harvard report, http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/reportsitem.aspx?id=101542, had interesting findings about the demographic composition of American newsrooms. The report said that women were constantly under-represented and one major obstacle they faced was male attitudes in male dominated media organizations where they are judged by male standards.

The report says “Perceptions of editorial management as a tough and virile domain, where decisions are made by men in smoke-filled rooms, are enough to stop some women from trying to become part of a world they regard as alien. More importantly, they affect the promotion prospects of many women who do aspire to senior positions.”

You could say this very same thing about many newsrooms in Africa.

But this obvious sidelining of women comes at a cost. One way to address this is to change the whole organizational culture, and prejudices in the workplace should be seen as a human, not only female, problem. And attitudes need to change. In this day and age, why can’t we all just get along? In a world devastating natural disasters, hunger, disease, economic problems and war, who needs the added strain of prejudice based on gender, race, culture, class, sex?