In the past, female journalists were unable to compete well with their male counterparts. Journalism became a male-dominated field. The few female journalists who made it through were confined to other sections that were considered manageable.
There was a widespread belief that female journalists were unable to handle various hard topics of news reporting like politics, crime, and sports. They were sidelined to softer programs like travel and leisure.
There is an improvement from recent years, and women are now joining journalism colleges in huge numbers. After the training, female journalists are now taking over the traditional male roles. If you do a spot check on various newsrooms, you will find a small number of female journalists compared to men.
There is a severe gender gap in journalism. The sad reality is that more female journalists are joining the market every year, but only a few get employed by major newsrooms. The faces in these newsrooms remain the same.
What could be causing this gender disparity?
There has been some progress by major newsrooms to incorporate women in top positions, but more can still be done. There are some reasons why female journalists are unable to compete well with their male colleagues.
This reasons partly contribute to the gender disparity and are good explanations on why female journalists don’t dominate the journalism sector. This video will help corroborate these statements.
Their appearance judges female journalists
Some people use social platforms or news forums to judge female journalists on how they look, rather than how they did their news reporting. In this case, female journalists are prone to sexist abuse in their line of work.
This site explains it all on how the internet is fueling this abuse. The sad part is that the reader interactivity and the public profile is of great importance to newsrooms. This discourages females from joining this profession. This is in sharp contrast to their male counterparts.
Most of you have read the article published in the life and style section of the guardian. It’s about a male presenter who wore the same suit for a year, and nobody noticed. Not even the hyperactive individuals in the social news forums. You can read the article here.
These social news forums have been taken over by rogue internet users, and they are using the platform to spread male chauvinism. This is a breach of work ethics and common sense. We should rise against this trait in social media and news forums.
Men are considered the experts
The primary culprit in this section is the sports newsroom. How many female journalists do you see analyzing and reporting major sports tournaments? There is a handful. People still consider sports a male-dominated field. By saying people, I mean the employers in major media outlets.
Men are considered best suited for the job. You will find an all men expert panel analyzing different sports in the forum. This contributes to the gender problem in major newsrooms and the media in general.
I say anybody can achieve something when given the right training and the chance, regardless of gender. Competency should be the judge. Sadly female journalists are still faced by the same problems in the past. Progress has been made, but this is not enough. This is why female journalists don’t dominate significant media organizations.