A new study in East Africa shows that over 80 per cent of the media in the region is controlled by male journalists, writes Dennis Itumbi.
The findings are contained in a study commissioned by the Eastern Africa Journalists Association (EAJA) set to be launched in Sudan by the end of the month.
According to the study, Burundi has the highest number of women in the media at 31.7 per cent followed by Djibouti and Ethiopia at 25 per cent each.
Somalis has the lowest number of women journalists with less than 1 per cent at decision-making levels.
EAJA brings together journalists from nine countries in the region – Burundi, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda.
The report concludes that cultural portrayal of women as the weaker sex is a direct result of employment policies and newsroom assignment procedures.
"For instance most political and business reporters are men and women are rarely funded to do investigative journalism due to what is viewed as inadequacies of women in such situations at the newsroom level, that has led to poor equity in coverage of gender issues since all the matters that concern the public are almost exclusively covered by
men," the report reads.
