• The latest GMMP results, released on 14th July 2021, revealed that female journalists were more likely to report on subjects that have traditionally been viewed as of particular interest to women.
• In Kenya, they monitored 118 stories; 65 from newspapers, 25 from television, 15 from radio, and 13 stories from news websites. No news tweets were tracked.
According to the Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP), the world’s longest-running and largest study of gender portrayal in the news media, the topic of a story determines the gender that tells it, at least in Kenya.
The latest GMMP results, released on 14th July 2021, revealed that female journalists were more likely to report on subjects that have traditionally been viewed as of particular interest to women, e.g. education, gender equality, LGBTQ, and welfare, and less expected to cover so-called male topics such as politics, crime, sports or violence.
Beginning in 1995, and taken once every five years, the GMMP research captures a snapshot of women’s presence on one ordinary news day in the world’s media. On 29th September 2020, the GMMP teams monitored over 30,000 news stories. They drew these stories from newspapers, radio and television, and on news websites and news media tweets from 116 countries.
In Kenya, they monitored 118 stories; 65 from newspapers, 25 from television, 15 from radio, and 13 stories from news websites. No news tweets were tracked.
This article will specifically focus on traditional media, as most Kenyans access news through radios, televisions and newspapers.
The findings showed that worldwide, “four out of 10 stories in traditional news media are reported by women, and in Africa, just over three in 10 stories are reported by women.”
In Kenya, this was even lower, with women reporting just two in 10 stories. From the 105 stories monitored in traditional media, a total of 162 reporters contributed to them, however, women’s visibility only stood at 23%.
The highest number of news reporters were found in print news (143), where women’s bylines in newspaper stories were 22%. Television came in second, wherefrom a sample of 19 reporters, 32% were women.
Gendered allocation of assignments
But it’s not just the underrepresentation of women in the news as storytellers that the study uncovered. It emerged that traditional perceptions and attitudes of gender roles influence the allocation of assignments in the newsrooms.
In Kenya, male journalists dominated all story beats. However, women were more likely to write about Social and Legal topics, which included natural disasters, feminism, childcare, family and legal issues, and migration. On this topic, out of 47 reporters, 20 were female.
Female reporters were also prone to cover economic stories like poverty, employment & unemployment, rural economy, and transport.
Women’s invisibility in political news stories continues to erode media equality in Kenya, a pattern unchanged from earlier studies. On monitoring day, across all traditional media in Kenya, 59 journalists reported on politics and government stories, yet only five of them (8%) were female.
Interestingly, while Health and Science news have seen greater representation in previous years (2015 global ratio was at par, 50%), because of the ongoing pandemic, science/health stories, specifically Covid-19 news items, were significantly higher. However, “women’s presence in this topic declined by five points after a steady rise between 2000 and 2015.”
In Kenya, from a sample of 15 reporters, only three female journalists reported on health and science news on monitoring day.
Chris Captain, a radio producer and reporter at Kenya Broadcasting Corporation (KBC) agrees with these findings.
“I know from my experience, gender is a big influence on the way stories are allocated on the radio. Where I work (KBC) we have 19 radio stations, but if you look at the trend, stories of lifestyle are for ladies and that segment would rather not be aired if they are not around than a man doing it. But even the ladies themselves are comfortable. As a man, if you try reporting on lifestyle issues, the ladies will ‘descend’ on you.”
He added, “Stories of politics are male-preferred because it's perceived male reporters know more about politics. Even the female assignment editors don’t ‘trust’ female reporters with some of these stories. When ladies are included, it’s for the one-third gender rule, not for what they will do. But if the First Lady is launching beyond zero, or someone is donating welfare materials, female reporters are given that opportunity.”
Angela Okech, a health and science reporter at Daily Nation (Nation Media Group), doesn’t agree, she says “Where I work, I’ve seen no bias. Those beats considered male-dominated like crime, investigative, politics, have several female reporters. And even on the Gender desk, we have men reporting these stories. My passion is on health reporting, but before that, I was reporting on politics, I didn’t find my niche there, so I moved to health and science reporting.”
Julius Jumah, a broadcast reporter at sports editor TV47, says gender is not a prominent factor in stories allocation in their newsrooms, but past perceptions are; “Some female colleagues don’t want to get into these hard beats because, for example, they grew up watching Julie Gichuru on TV and she wasn’t doing politics, so they’ll say ‘wacha nifanye chenye alikuwa anafanya’, to follow her trajectory. Even some editors are party to this stereotype and propagate it in the way they assign stories.”
The three journalists, however, agree that the violent nature of political reporting is a contributing factor to why fewer women report on politics.
Chris says “the environment is not friendly. Because of potential chaos or violence in rallies, most women do not cover these assignments.”
Angela believes the same, “At some point though, like during the election period, given the scenario of the work, media houses majorly prefer assigning male reporters to cover these stories.”
Julius says, “if chaos erupts in rallies, it's easier for a male journalist to manoeuvre than a woman.”
Amid these factors is the role of the media in gender equality.
A study in Nigeria found that media managers used the guise of protecting women journalists by shielding them from unsafe hard beats. These ‘hot beats’ are politics, conflicts, elections, and sports. Ironically, these are the stories that earn journalists’ promotion to management and editorial positions.
The Palgrave international handbook of women and journalism also found that an attitude prevailing that women were unsuitable for dangerous reporting assignments.
“Patriarchal cultural attitudes hinder women from fulfilling the roles of covering ‘hard news’ in African newsrooms. There was a tendency to assign men topics considered more important in news terms. The requirements to travel and socialize with contacts did not fit well with what it perceives as a woman’s role in traditionally patriarchal cultures in countries like Kenya.”
The December 2020 Barriers to Women Journalists in Sub-Saharan Africa study, published by Fojo Media Institute and African Women in Media, revealed that “Men are often given the ‘hard news’ jobs while women are fobbed off with topics that male bosses think more fitting for ‘the weaker sex’.”
The dominance of patriarchal structures in these newsrooms has produced masculinized norms, leading to sexist attitudes that marginalize women journalists.
The study, carried out in 17 countries across sub-Saharan Africa, recorded 58% of respondents, having experienced barriers because of being female.
Gendered allocation of assignments, which included the stories women reporters could cover, was the area they shared experiences about the most.
Data from African Women in Media study
References to women as the weaker gender was the major reason they were allocated narratives considered ‘softer’ and ‘more appropriate for women.’ These soft topics comprised Social issues, Arts, and living.
What does the future hold?
While commenting on this, Churchill Otieno, the president of the Kenya Editors' Guild, said there are now a lot more female journalists in Kenya reporting on the non-traditional beats, though the numbers are still not high.
“Through our innovation committee, we are developing direct mentorship programmes for female journalists, and also leadership training to open the eyes of editors to see that creativity is gender-neutral,” he said.
If everything stays the same, the GMMP report states It will take at least 67 more years to close the average gender equality gap in traditional news media worldwide.
Adhiambo Edith is freelance journalist based in Nairobi