By Shamiso Ndangana
Media Monitors has bemoaned the lack of balance of voices in sourcing news by the media in Zimbabwe, adding that women frontline workers have been ignored despite putting an outstanding job in the fight against COVID-19.
The organisation said the situation can only be rectify if media houses adopt policies that make it mandatory to have balanced voices in news.
Speaking during a webinar to commemorate international women’s day recently, the organisation’s senior researcher Prisiel Samu said, “The fact that women’s voices are barely heard in reports on pertinent issues attest to the deficiencies in sourcing patterns adopted by the media.
“There is need for media houses to develop and enforce policies on balance in their news content particularly with regards to gender representation.
“This can be done by dedicating stories that focus on women in every section of their publications or news broadcasts. These stories need to capture both the challenges that women are encountering and the achievements they are making in trying to improve their welfare and to contribute to the development of the country,” he said.
According to Samu, while the media did a good job in covering the COVID-19 issue, women were only subjects in about 4% of the reports and they also mainly focused on the negativities and not positives.
“What we noted is that even though COVID-19 was extensively covered, women’s voices were limited, and they were only subjects in just 4% of the reports that we monitored and here you see the first challenge that we observed is that women are not being covered by the media
“When the socio-economic impact of COVID-19 was being covered with regards to women, only their vulnerability was being exposed,” said Samu.
Speaking on the same occasion, legislator Sipho Makone, said despite being side-lined by the media, women are at time media-shy due to patriarchy.
“Women are media-shy owning to patriarchy and at times women are genuinely side-lined by male counterparts. Maybe it is because the industry is male-dominated. “Media usually cover women from offices, what about those in the rural setup? There is a need for media to work on neutral coverage.”
Women front-line workers ignored by the media
