Thinking of women, men in the media

 

Two women reporters talked on social media about the sexual harassment they faced when having to deal with the former Minister of Health bheri ramsarran, while one male reporter said that , after the announcement of the firing, that he knows young female reporters would be happy.

I saw a press release about this year's World Press Freedom Day from the US Embassy . The theme this year is “Let Journalism Thrive! Towards Better Reporting, Gender Equality, & Media Safety" did not make much sense but then I read that the theme is about three different things.  

The issue of gender equality seems to be about gender balance in the control of the media , and the gender based violence faced by female journalists and other media workers.

My encounters with the media started in 1997 when I was  doing the public education and advocacy work on domestic violence and child abuse with Help & Shelter.  The topics were still non-partisan even though the 1997 election campaign was looming and it was pretty ugly. 

The media workers I met during those early years were mostly women. I am grateful to them for the ease with which they dispelled nervousness on live radio shows and television. 

They were keen to get the message out and I think even now, the most sensible coverage of the issues of domestic violence and child abuse and gender based discrimination is done by women. 

There is some awful reporting also done by women and  men.

Thanks to the counselling training which I got from Help & Shelter, I started to ask questions and learned from the journalists of their own stories of colleagues and others who were dealing with gender based violence. 

"yeah.. de editor gah fuh feel up all dem gyal fus"

Almost twenty years later, a woman told me about her former work place that she would not recommend that any good looking young woman go and work there.  There are rumours and so, but nothing concrete.  Sexual harassment is difficult to prove.

I also learned that the journalists and media workers do not tell their own stories.  How does a journalist write about another person's experience of violence while ignoring their own? What impact does it have on the quality of the stories? What impact does it have on the journalist?

A  woman who was interested in doing work on domestic violence had to stop because of the harassment from one of her bosses. She had showed me letters she had written and complaints she had made and she was told that 'she like the man' and that something was wrong with her. I hate that I cannot praise her work which has not been repeated  since I do not want to identify her. The work and the ideas have been lost and she is no longer in Guyana.

Iana Seales blogged about her experience with the former Commissioner of Police Henry Greene .  The other women reporters shared their experience on social media about their encounter with the men in power who harass them.

I do not know if the male journalists face the same harassment. One man I know, not in Guyana, was shocked when he got hit on by a few male subjects of his interviews.

Another male journalist has said that he would not report any story involving a man who misunderstood his friendship.

I also learned that all genders in the profession were capable of prejudice and bias. I learned who to avoid when doing some of the work.  One of the daft things about Guyana is our interconnectedness and in the irony across the differences of race, religion, political affiliation - the experience of gender based violence was similar.

Two women journalists of Guyanese extraction Gaiutra Bahadur and Natalie Hopkinson  have written highly acclaimed books.  I think of the women  I have met and the stories they have told and I wonder if there are other books not written and whether the sexism adds to the stress of getting out of the work soon.

I have been teaching the practical part of an online journalism course since 2010. The students are mostly women. The students tend to assignments on a range of topics. The topics are very rarely discussed in the 'regular ' media and I often feel sad

I am curious as to whether women journalists tell stories differently from men journalists. A group of male students will be doing an assignment about sex workers and I am keen to compare their story telling to a previous story from a group of female students.

There have been other gender bending experiences for me - like the young male TV reporter whose coverage of the activities on a child protection project was some of the best at that time. His motivation was his interest - until his beat changed.

I am no journalist. Mark Jacobs has written his views about the  problems of journalism in Guyana

I get a sense that most of the reporters are women while most of the editors and managers are men.  I do not know how much the sexism and discrimination experienced by the journalists impacts on the investigations which are done and how they are reported.  I do not know how people who are not journalists, but who would like to benefit from diverse and high quality journalism, could help.