Africa-Press – Kenya. Kenya Editors Guild has asked media houses to mainstream gender in their reporting and have more women occupy senior managerial positions.
President Churchill Otieno said on Tuesday that most media houses in the country were yet to integrate gender mainstreaming into their reportage and many stories were still being told with a patriarchal lens.
He spoke at a meeting between the guild and the National Gender and Equality Commission and the UN Women at a city hotel.
Otieno said the gender question in the media space had many contributing factors and a comprehensive approach was needed in tackling it.
For example, he said, the majority of mainstream news outlets do not have standalone and comprehensive gender policies compared to a few alternative or community media houses.
Otieno also said sexual harassment in the media remains a major area of concern.
“A few media houses have put in place measures to address the problem, with clear lines of reporting for survivors or victims of such violence. The problem remains lack of robust implementation of these guidelines,” he said.
Otieno said there was poor capacity among media practitioners on how to interrogate, analyse and report topical issues through various lenses, including gender and human rights.
Even compounding the problem is the fact that too few women occupy managerial positions in the media, especially in the print media compared to the electronic platforms.
“…the converse is the case in the electronic media where more women are represented in the top managerial positions. There is need to study and appreciate why electronic media has more in managerial positions compared to the print media.”
Otieno said in most platforms, allocation of assignments tend to take a gender dimension with women being assigned tasks on “soft issues” compared to their male counterparts.
Reporting on gender is still seen as a woman’s thing in the media, something that needs to be addressed, he said.
Also, media schools need to have a course on gender reporting so that practitioners can fully appreciate the importance of equality.
As a solution, the organisation says bosses in media houses should review procedures and policies that exclude rather than encourage women to take part in newsgathering and top level decision-making.
Otieno said the perspectives of women in the gathering and reporting of news tend to differ and their exclusion denies the news consumers an enriched perspective.
“Apply and adopt gender parity policies in the media. Media houses in Kenya should ensure policies on gender parity in terms of employment and assignment / engagement including reporting are implemented and adhered to,” he said.
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