Analysis of Women Journalists’ Roles in Daily Trust, Leadership, The Nation and The Guardian Newspaper Organisations in Nigeria

Abstract

Studies have shown that journalism has been a male-dominated profession since inception. And just like in political, economic and social life, women, as argued by scholars, continued to be relegated in journalism practice despite a significant increase in the enrolment of female students in communication studies globally. Many studies have documented that more women are studying mass communication or journalism worldwide. However, that increase seems not to translate into more women in the media and better status of women in journalism practice even in countries where women constitute the majority in journalism workforce. International Federation of Journalists Report (2009) indicates that women still do not play an important role in the reporting process as well as the top hierarchy of the profession. Thus, there is need to investigate the roles assign to women journalists in print media in Nigeria to determine how they fair in that sector. In the conduct of this therefore, the quantitative and qualitative survey methods were relied on with the instruments of the questionnaire used to gather data from all the female journalists working in the four selected newspapers. This is because the size of the population of women journalists is small and does not require a sample to determine the objectives of the study. Therefore, the study is a census study where sample size and sampling technique are not needed. The Key Informant Interview (KII) schedule to gather qualitative data from two senior editors from each of the newspaper organisations. In the end, it was found that women roles in the newspaper organisations studied are either editorial or reportorial roles and that roles were not assigned on the basis of gender even though in The Nation newspaper, only were assigned to women desk. It was also found that the criteria for assigning roles to women journalists in the newspaper organizations are merit and ability to deliver, working experience and they are not gender based. And it was found that the major challenges women faced in carrying out assigned roles and overall career progression in Daily Trust, Leadership, The Nation and The Guardian newspaper organizations include closing time and other factors like sexual harassment and neglect, balancing professional duties with domestic responsibilities due to their biological nature and the stress associated with pregnancy which requires that they are treated carefully including incessant complaints by husbands. It was therefore recommended among others that there is the need to improve women journalists’ welfare by increasing their pay and the provision of day care support and, company bus service.