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Women and Journalism
To writers in countries throughout the world, Nieman Reports posed a few questions: In your
country or region, what is the situation for women journalists? If women journalists are
progressing into decision-making positions, what impact, if any, exists in how news is being
covered? What these journalists tell, in their articles that follow, surprise, infuriate, inspire,
anger, delight and sadden us. Best of all, they inform us by reminding us of realities we’d
suspected and telling us of circumstances we hadn’t imagined. In reading this collection of
women’s experiences, a shared sense of future challenges is revealed.
Our opening writer, Margaret Gallagher, whose research focuses on gender and the
media, reminds us, “Wherever one looks in the world, women still have little decision-making
power either inside the media organizations themselves, or in the political and economic
institutions with which these organizations must interface. This is one of the reasons why female
journalists—even when they are a majority within the profession—remain highly
vulnerable….”
Some journalists, like Worldwoman editor Lesley Riddoch, leave publications where
stories about women do not receive adequate coverage. Riddoch writes about her online news
service, written for and about women, and about the virtual newsroom pilot project she uses to
train women journalists in Africa. From Africa, Christine Anyanwu, chief executive of
Spectrum Broadcasting Company of Nigeria, describes the situation in Nigeria and sheds light
on why efforts like Riddoch’s are necessary. “The definition of news, what makes news, real
marketable news in Nigeria inevitably excludes a sizeable chunk of the population, especially
women.” In South Africa, Pippa Green is one of three women editors in the country in her job
as associate deputy editor of the Financial Mail in Johannesburg. Green’s story illuminates a
debate about why (and whether) the absence of women in leadership positions matters. Two
African women, L. Muthoni Wanyeki and Lettie Longwe, who oversee programs that train
rural women to tell stories at community radio stations, explain radio’s vital role in
communicating news about women’s lives and its potential as a force for societal change.
Teresita Hermano and Anna Turley share results from the Global Media Monitoring
Project 2000, a worldwide survey of women’s presence and portrayal in the news, done by the
World Association for Christian Communication, with which they work. Peggy Simpson, a
freelance writer living in Poland, writes about Agora, one of Europe’s newest media empires
that is owned and run by women. Ratih Hardjono recalls her decade-long experience while
reporting on war and conflict for Kompas, an Indonesian daily. “In the coverage of war, it is
stories about women’s lives that often go untold,” she writes, and then describes her efforts to
change that situation. These women’s stories, she contends, “are so very different than men’s,
and necessary to hear if we are to understand the consequences of war.”
From India, Ammu Joseph, author of “Women in Journalism: Making News,” observes how
women report alongside men but their impact (on coverage of news) can be difficult to
discern. Indian author and journalist Sakuntala Narasimhan finds her nation’s culture
Nieman Reports / Winter 2001 61