Journalists have been urged to be deliberate while reporting on sensitive issues especially concerning how they portray women and other marginalized groups on digital platforms.
The talk was held during a refresher training of online reporters & influencers on responsive portrayal of women & girls in digital news on platform X to enhance their knowledge & skills organized by the Uganda Media Women Association (UMWAandMamaFM) with support from Global Media Monitoring Project.
“You are going to give the skill to the reporter but when they come back here, they operate differently,” Brenda Namata the communication specialist and Gender advocate UMWA mentioned as she reminisced her former engagements with the media house owners who expressed their concern on the reporters inconsistencies.
“There recommendation (media owners) was don’t stop because the problem that we have they said some of you, you the journalists join their media houses from their perspective, that when you’re joining them you’re going because of what you see they’re doing online and all kinds of things there so you’re going there to contribute to that particular thing but you don’t propose any form of change.
Namata also said that a collective effort towards training and reminding journalists of the impacts of responsive reporting on women and girls online would create a breed of reporters who will spare head the much needed change but also try to influence the kind of content that’s conveyed out there.
“What we can say is that we are going to continue with the persistent engagement at least for those that recognize the gaps and look forward towards change amid trying to balance their statistics, Brenda retaliated.
Journalists on the other hand showed scapticism on whether their media houses are willing to abandon what so may be their house style and be adoptive to the new and responsive ways of portraying information. In this they argued that some media bosses are too rigid to adopt to the new technologies but also styles of telling and deseminating news stories.
Recent information indicates how the digital gender gap continues to expand in many developing countries creating a specific need to support digital gender equality. Uganda is preserved as one of those countries with the largest gender gap with only 19% Ugandan women online compared to the 27 Men.
This gap is regarded to be exacerbated by journalists having continuously stirred irresponsive reporting and negative portrayal of women whose impact has been dare as it cuts cross and never centers on the news subject alone creating an need to invest in understanding how to report responsively using among others; permissible language, avoiding biases, having empathy, mindset change, engage in extensive research and planing your stories.
“I hope you have learnt a thing or two that you’re going to take away and apply with in your nature of work or personal space and keep the conversation around,” said Brenda. Adding it’s this kind of consistency and work that will get you in bigger and more spaces that will enhance your career.
