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Women: International
Women engaged in processing coir fiber (fiber obtained from the husk of a coconut).
Photo courtesy of The Hindu, India.
nalists (both men and women) in newspapers
have resulted in serious articles
being published by national dailies,
state-level newspapers, magazines and
some leading Indian-language publications.
We’ve also learned that the
ways in which we package our stories,
and their relevance to current news,
matter. But constant effort with marketing
these stories is required.
Certain news stories rarely do well.
When the subject is domestic violence,
rape, dowry deaths, laws on inheritance,
divorce and maintenance, sexual
harassment, sexual abuse, lack of access
to education and health services,
police cruelty, and reproductive rights,
it is only sensational “bad news” stories
that generate interest. Despite the presence
of women journalists on the crime
beat, incidents of rape and dowry
deaths (shockingly regular occurrences
in the Indian subcontinent) are usually
reported in a routine manner with the
Villagers in West Bengal line up before panchayat (village council) polls. Photo courtesy
of The Hindu, India.
police being the sole source of information.
Deadline pressure is one reason,
but the other is that editors rarely
insist that reporters get more information
from other sources. Nor is there
often any follow-up to an incident.
When it comes to issues that impact
most directly on women, news that
should cause concern and lead to analytical
articles that examine a particular
issue in depth is often dismissed in a
couple of paragraphs on an inside page.
The responsibility of the media to
educate, inform and stimulate debate
seems often to be forgotten. Moreover,
coverage of women’s issues tends to be
event-based, not sustained. For instance,
little serious writing has been
done on proposed laws on domestic
violence and sexual harassment in the
workplace even though non-governmental
organizations (NGO’s) and
India’s National Commission for
Women have been working on them.
The interface between NGO’s and media
needs improvement. These are the
kinds of stories that we can and do
pursue through the Women’s Feature
Service.
The other drawback is that there are
only a few women writers—and fewer
men—who can give a fresh perspective
or insights into issues that concern
women. Many women journalists have
been conditioned (both socially and
through the competitiveness of this
profession) to adopt masculine attitudes
and values. For instance, for a
month after the United States declared
its “war on terror” and began bombing
Afghanistan, none of the leading newspapers
in India wrote on its editorial
page about the women in this conflict.
At the same time, a leading women’s
activist wrote for WFS a thought-provoking
piece that argued that the terms
of both war and peace were masculine
and coercive and that these terms had
an impact on women. The article was
published on the editorial page of
India’s largest newspaper, The Times
of India, and subsequently by other
publications. [More information about
the activities and history of WFS can be
found at www.wfsnews.org.]
In India, there is a glass ceiling that
women journalists have yet to break:
Nieman Reports / Winter 2001 91