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Women: International
put it simply, public
opinion is not stuck on
the same page as the
male editors.
In our countries, the
main issue that traditionally
has moved public
opinion—politics—
is fading away and,
frankly, it might be for
good. Most leaders,
when invested with authority,
have abused
power and/or economic
interests. While people
die of hunger and neglect
in many places
throughout the world,
money accumulates in
the hands of authority.
Corruption sets in.
People lose hope. Today,
the more that
sources of information
come from formal authority,
the farther away
the people withdraw.
Media, as a whole,
have been slow in understanding
this.
Women journalists,
who have wanted to
move the agenda elsewhere
but who have
had little or no space to
do so, have been the
exception. We have
longed to cover issues
that public opinion now
seems focused on—human
relationships, the
workplace, gender issues,
discrimination,
AIDS, poverty, home
violence, raising children,
and quality of life. But these
issues have had to wait too long, beaten
back by stories that lack a sensible
point of view, and have resulted in
media standardization.
In mid-1999, Uruguayan journalist
María Urruzola, a victim of constant
sexual harassment from one of her
colleagues at work, wrote an article on
what was going on at her bureau. She
described her treatment in its utmost
detail and summoned other women in
A massive funeral for eight teenagers raped and killed by a serial killer in Alto Hospicio in northern Chile.
Photo courtesy of Paula magazine.
the country to speak out. She told her
male boss that she wanted the piece to
be published in her paper, Brecha (The
Gap). He agreed. Good for María and
good for Brecha. This unlikely outcome
gave the newspaper the high
credibility it has held ever since.
Women’s impact in reporting and
writing is often evident in the “feminine”
point of view they bring to analyzing
news. Women know about feelings
and emotions, and they want to
look at the social phenomena hidden
behind the facts. And they usually know
how to get at stories that other reporters
have missed. In fact, recently Latin
American women reporters have been
bringing many stories to the fore about
discrimination, gender, poverty, hunger
in Sudan, nine-year-old girls being
circumcised in 29 African countries,
and what life is like for a Taliban woman
under her burka, a story reported long
before September 11.
Nieman Reports / Winter 2001 101