Women in the media: An analysis of newsmakers and

news subjects in the print media in Kenya and Uganda.

Women in the media: An analysis of newsmakers and

news subjects in the print media in Kenya and Uganda.

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Women in the media: An analysis of newsmakers and news subjects in the

print media in Kenya and Uganda.

Written by Anne Kari Garberg and Helen Hillevi T. Ruud

Kampala/Nairobi June 2011Table of content

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ediaIntroduction“For the media to accurately mirror our societies and to produce coverage that is complete and diverse, it is critical that the news reflect the world as seen through the eyes of women as well as men” (Unesco Report 2009). However, earlier studies have shown that the world reported through media is mostly male1. The voices heard and the faces seen are largely the ones of men. Women’s visibility in the media, and especially in the news, has been revealed to be extremely low. In the GMMP (The Global Media Monitorin Project) from 2010, results showed that only 24% of the people heard or read about in print, radio and television news are female (GMMP 2010:7). In a study done by the Eastern African Journalists Association (EAJA) in 2008, 100% of those interviewed were of the view that gender portrayal in the media is heavily skewed in favour of the men. The majority of respondents also stated that gender awareness and sensitivity is yet to be built into news reporting requirements (EAJA 2008:15)2. In the recently concluded 2011 general elections in Uganda about 98 % of presidential coverage was accorded to male candidates while 1.8% went to the lone woman candidate in the race, Betty Kamya (The New Vision 19.05.20113). In Kenya, only 16 % of news subjects are female, compared to 84 % male, according to findings by The Global Media Monitoring Project, 2010.

Studies such as these triggered an interest to find out more about the situation of women journalists in Uganda and Kenya, their representation in media houses and their portrayal as sources in news stories. How is the situation in 2011? Are women’s voices still being denied? What about women as news makers – are they getting space in our newspapers? These were some of the questions we wanted to answer and after some discussion we formulated our hypothesis as following:

Women are under-represented in the print media in Uganda and Kenya both as news subjects and news makers.

Objectives of the studyThis study is a joint project between Uganda Media Women’s Association (UMWA) and the Association of Media Women (AMWIK) in Kenya. For both organizations, enhancing the status of women in society, promoting gender equality and countering the negative portrayal of women in and by the media, are important work objectives. Mapping the current representation and portrayal of women in the Ugandan and Kenyan print media is therefore crucial. The aim is that this research will provide data that the organizations can use to advance the work they do on improving the gender balance in the media. The research will identify the most pressing issues and help the organizations set the course for future work.

About the organizations1 The Global Media Monitoring Project, the world’s largest and longest longitudinal study on

gender and media and a study by the Eastern African Journalists Association in 2008.2 This study included the following countries: Burundi, Djibouti, Eritrea,

Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzaniaand Uganda3 The study was done by VISION group, a multimedia business housing newspaper, magazines, internet

publishing, television, radio broadcasting, commercial printing, and advertising and distribution services.

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8 UMWAUMWA was founded in 1983 as a voluntary organization for female journalists and women involved in information management. This was after the realization that Uganda did not have an umbrella body to cater for the professional interests of media women as well as the information needs of the marginalized in society. UMWA advocates and creates awareness among Ugandan women, children and people with disabilities about their rights, freedoms, responsibilities and civic duties in society. It runs two media outlets: a radio station, Mama FM and a newspaper, The Other Voice (TOV). One important objective for UWMA is to counter the negative portrayal of women in the media (www.umwamamafm.co.ug).

AMWIK AMWIK was founded in 1983, prior to the United Nation’s Third World Women’s Conference held in Nairobi in 1985 by women in middle and senior management levels in the media. It is registered under the Societies Act as a non-profit membership organization for women journalists from the print, electronic media and other areas of communication. AMWIK brings together women communicators from the private and public sectors of Kenya to pool their professional skills in giving more visibility to women's concerns, as well as to use networking to foster collaboration with other sectors of society.

Methodology

Data selectionTo limit the scope of the data we decided to focus on print media. In the case of Uganda we have analysed the two national daily newspapers published in English; The New Vision and The Daily Monitor. Bukedde, a daily newspaper in Luganda, and the Weekly Observer, a weekly newspaper in English were not included in the study.

The New Vision was established in its current form in 1986 by the Ugandan Government. Today it is owned by the Ugandan government (53%) and by institutional and individual investors (47%). Government ownership influences the coverage of the newspaper in many ways. For instance, the paper is broadly sympathetic to the government of President Yoweri Museveni and the coverage of government policies tends to be somewhat unbalanced. However, we don’t expect government ownership to influence the gender balance in the coverage, sources or reporters.

The Monitor was established in 1992 as an Independent daily Newspaper, and relaunched as Daily Monitor in June 2005. The paper is owned by the Nation Media Group together with five other individual shareholders. The private ownership is said to guarantee the independence of its editors and journalists, free from the influence of Government.

In the case of Kenya we have looked at four newspapers. The Daily Nation, The Standard, The Star and The People.

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ediaThe Daily Nation is Kenya’s largest newspaper and is owned by Nation Media Group (NMG).

The NMG was founded by Aga Khan in 1959 and is the largest independent media house in East and Central Africa. The Daily Nation’s circulation is above 200,000 copies a day (kenya-advisor.com) and it has a market share of almost 75 %. According to the BBC the newspaper is “widely regarded as being independent and balanced”.

The Standard is the main competitor to the Daily Nation. It has a 20 % market share. It is Kenya’s oldest newspaper, established as the African Standard in 1902. It is owned by the Standard Group, which also runs the Kenya Television Network (KTN). According to Kenya-information-guide.com it tends to be more critical of the government and is perceived as leaning more towards the views of the opposition.

The Star, formerly known as the Nairobi Star, is a national tabloid newspaper established in 2007. It describes itself as the fastest growing newspaper in Kenya.

The People is a newspaper published by The People Media Group in Nairobi. It is much less influential than the biggest newspapers in Kenya, but has recently shown its ambitions by changing its layout and is in the process of establishing a website.

The Star and The People were included in the analysis in addition to the two largest newspapers because they were available in the AMWIK office and therefore easily accessible. Including more newspapers also contributes to a more nuanced picture of women’s representation in print media.

We have not included newspapers like The East African, Business Daily, Kenya Times and Coastweek. This makes us unable to present the full picture. Our analysis would have been strengthened if we had included Kenya Times and Coastweek specifically, since both the East African and Business Daily are published by the already known Nation Media Group. However, we believe that our analysis is considerably strengthened by including the Star and The People.

Special magazines All the newspapers have a number of special magazines ranging from weekend magazines, agricultural magazines, health and lifestyle magazine etc. These were not included in the analysis both as a way to limit the amount of stories, and because magazine articles often are of a specific nature that would require another set of categories. The New Vision in Uganda has a weekly magazine called “Woman”. In Kenya, The Standard has a similar weekly magazine called “Eve Gal”. Including these magazines in the analysis would probably have changed the result and the number of stories with gender perspectives would have been higher. On the other hand, the same magazines would probably not increase the number of stories that clearly challenges gender stereotypes. On the contrary headlines such as “How to maintain a sewn-in weave” (about hair) and “Get fiery in red” (about fashion) reinforce, more than they challenge stereotypes about women. “Woman”, “Eve Gal” and other magazines like them also demonstrate that ‘gender issues’ is often believed to be synonymous with ‘women’s issues’ and moreover that those ‘women’s issues’ are special issues that belong in a special magazine and not in mainstream news content. We wanted to focus on mainstream news in our analysis, and have therefore not included these magazines. We do however believe that these magazines

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10 deserve a study on their own. An analysis of their content would provide interesting information about what is considered specific women’s issues in the two countries and would surely reveal numerous gender stereotypes.

We have not coded editorials, commentaries or letters to editors, but sport and business sections have been included.

The process of gathering the dataWe decided to gather data in two rounds. In the first we looked at the six newspapers for two weeks dating from the 10th of January to the 21st of January. Neither AMWIK nor UMWA has an archive of newspapers. To look at newspapers over a big time span was therefore not possible. Also the authors are exchange participants who will go back to Norway in the end of July/beginning of August. Embarking on a long term data collection project was therefore not an option.

In Uganda the data collection period was a time of pre elections. To a large extent this affected the content of the news stories. The referendum in Sudan was another big event that reoccurred in many stories. In Kenya the referendum in Sudan as well as the ICC case against the so-called Ocampo Six was reoccurring issues4.

We do not believe that this had a great impact on the analysis, but cannot exclude the possibility of these big events”pushing out” other stories from the newspapers. That said, the election in Uganda and the referendum is Sudan are also events that could be covered from a gender perspective and such stories can also be expected to be ‘gender balanced’ both in reporters and sources.

Codes and categories To conduct a content analysis on a text, the text is coded or broken down, into manageable categories on a variety of levels and then examined (Palmquist 1980). For this particular survey we took our categories and codes from “Who makes the News”, the global media monitoring project from 2010. For each of the newspapers we registered the date on the following categories:

the name of the publication »the total number of articles with bylines »the number of articles written by women »

Then we took a closer look at the stories that were written by women coding them on the following categories:

headline of story »topic of the story »size of story »

4 After the post-election violence in Kenya in 2007 the International Criminal Court issues summonses against six Kenyans of which four are Kenyan top politicians, suspected to bear the biggest responsibility for the violence that killed 1,200 people. The so-called Ocampo Six (name refers to the ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo) were tried in the Hague in April 2011. At the time of writing the case remains unsolved.

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ediagender perspective »

We only coded articles that were written by women journalists. This was a way of limiting the amount of stories. It was necessary since we did not have a team of workers gathering and coding the data.

Some limitationsOne problem with such a selection is that we might miss out on the stories written by men covering gender issues. It also makes it impossible to compare tendencies in articles written by women to articles written by men. Are women more likely to add gender perspectives? Are men more likely to write stories that reinforce gender stereotypes? These are questions we will not be able to answer since articles by male reporters are left out of the analysis. On the other hand this selection gives us a picture of what women journalists write about, which was part of what we wanted to find out.

We also have to take into consideration that journalists are not always authorised to choose the stories they write. Sometimes the editor will assign them to cover certain stories. Trends and tendencies in the topics that women journalist cover (in this analysis) can therefore be an indication of how the editors assign women as much as an indication of what women journalists wish to write about.

Why these categories?To get a picture of the topic of the story we coded the headlines. In addition we coded the topic of the story according to a number of categories ranging from economy, politics, arts, science etc (these were categories borrowed from the GMMP - Global Media Monitoring Project). Furthermore we wanted to find out the size of the story. We coded each story according to Norwegian terminology as either an A, B or C story - or a note. An A story is the main story on the page and often takes up more space. The B story is the second story, the C the third and then the note is the smallest story, often only one paragraph and with no by-line. This was done to discover any connections between the sex of the journalist and the space given for the story. In most newspapers the general rule is; the more important the story is the more space it will get. Do women write the important stories? That was one of the questions we wanted to answer.

Gathering data on sourcesThe second round of gathering data was done by a different selection. To get a wider time span we did a constructed week sample gathering data from newspapers on the following dates. Monday 7th of February, Tuesday 15th of February, Wednesday 23rd of February, Thursday 3rd of March and Friday 11th of March. In the analysis done in Uganda some newspapers were not available hence the dates are the following: 3rd of February, 7th of February, 15th of February, 23rd of February and 4th of March. All weekdays are still included in the analysis. As for the first round, magazines were not included nor were editorials, commentaries or letters to the editor.

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12 In this round of data gathering we coded the sources. We define sources as those directly or indirectly quoted in a story. People who are simply mentioned or listed in the story are not coded.

Codes and categoriesFor each of the newspapers we registered

the date and the name of the publication »the total number of stories »the number of stories with one or more female sources »

For stories with one or more female sources we looked at:

whether the stories were written by a woman or by a man/mixed »the occupation or position of the source(s) »the function of the source in the story »whether the source was portrayed as a victim »whether the source was portrayed as a survivor »whether the story clearly highlights issues of inequality between women and men »whether the story clearly challenges gender stereotypes »

We coded stories with female sources because we wanted to find out how specifically female sources were portrayed.

Some limitationsIf we had also coded male sources on the same categories we would be able to compare information about male and female sources. For instance we could discover whether more women than men are portrayed as victims or if more women than men have the function of experts in a story. However, as mentioned earlier, time and resources were limited and focusing on only female sources was a good way of reducing the amount of data. The categories still give an informative picture of the way women are portrayed.

Why these categories?When registering the occupation of the source we again borrowed categories from the GMMP. Doing this enabled us to discover if women portrayed in the media tend to have certain professions. As for the category “function in the news story” we separated between sources functioning as subjects, spokesperson, expert or those speaking from personal experience. This makes it possible to see how often or seldom women are quoted as experts or if they tend to be included in stories because of having personal experiences on the topic. Registering if the female sources were portrayed as a victim and/or as a survivor was interesting because earlier media monitoring projects (for instance the GMMP) has shown a tendency where a high %age of women appear in media stories as victims. Often these women victims are portrayed as passive, they lack agency to confront their challenges and deal with their problems. The stories

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ediafocus on their trauma and their suffering instead of their courage, will to fight and actively struggle for their rights. These are blatant stereotypes that are often very easy to identify and that are very harmful to both women and men.

Analytical categories The last three categories ‘are women central to this story’ , ’this story clearly challenges stereotypes’ and ‘this story clearly highlights issues of inequality between women and men’ were more challenging than the others since they depend on personal interpretation. “Different people will come to different conclusion based on their understanding of what is expected of women and of men in their specific cultural context” (Newspaper Monitoring Guide, GMMP 2010:15). We both wrote down our conclusions based on our personal perspectives. Also, although some stereotypes are universal, we come from a different culture and might have a different understanding of gender roles. Hence the results of the analysis might have been somewhat different if people with another cultural background were registering the data. That said, we do not believe that this weakens the analysis.

Results of the analysis

Number of articles written by women When counting news stories with bylines (excluding commentaries and articles with no reporters) we ended up with a total of 2466 stories in the 6 newspapers. Out of these 401 were written by women journalists. The total picture is therefore this: 16 % of the stories in Kenya and Uganda were written by women journalists. In Uganda the Daily Monitor was slightly better than The New Vision with 17 % versus 15 %. In Kenya The People had the best gender balance – 22% of the articles had bylines by female journalists. The paper with the fewest articles by women was The Standard, with a %age of 8. The results were almost identical for the two countries (16% in Kenya, 17% in Uganda).

According to the CIA World Factbook women comprise about 50 % of the total population in both Kenya and Uganda. One would expect that this would be reflected in the media houses and that there would be an equal number of male and female journalists. As these results clearly show, that is not the case. The print media is still dominated by male voices in both Kenya and Uganda.

The study done by the Eastern African Journalists Association in 2008 explored some of the causes for this continued male dominance. Through interviews with journalists some of the reasons mentioned were: cultural and societal problems faced by women hindering their work, married women journalists stated that their husbands were discontented of their professional tasks. Lack of self-esteem and a lower pay among women journalists were other reasons mentioned (EAJA 2008:41).

In this regard it is worth to mention that according to the GMMP findings (2010) the gender balance is much better in Kenyan TV and radio than it is in the print media. The study states that

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14 48 % of the reporters and presenters in Kenyan radio and TV are female, whereas only 15 % of the journalists in Kenyan newspapers are women.

According to AMWIK's Executive Director Jane Thuo, one of the reasons why women journalists tend to go into radio or TV instead of print media in Kenya and Uganda might be that there are more male senior editors or managers in the print media than in electronic media, and therefore a bias in the way female journalists are treated.

- In fact, a number of senior media women exit the print media more often for jobs elsewhere in NGOs, PR firms etc., than is witnessed in the electronic media. Electronic media calls for visual and audio and because women journalists are “expected to attract viewership by sounding and looking attractive”, there is a tendency to have more women there, Jane Thuo says.

According to Margaret Sentamu-Masagazi, the Executive Director of Uganda Media Women’s Association (UMWA), some of the reasons for the low number of articles written by female journalists are connected to societal expectations. Journalism is still considered a male profession in Uganda. It is regarded as a ‘hard’ and ‘masculine’ job where a person needs to be ‘manlike’ to venture into it. And as society expects a good woman should act ‘womanish’, submissive, feminine and do the feminine jobs, less women will venture into journalism, Sentamu says.

Other reasons can be found in the newsroom. Male and female employers will assign employees as per societal expectations. When a ‘tough’ assignment emerges, which may require working long hours out of station, the male reporters will be chosen before the women, Sentamu says.

Size of storiesIn addition to counting the number of articles written by female journalists we also looked at the size of the stories written by women. In Kenya the number was quite uplifting. 39 % of the stories written by women were main stories. One newspaper in Kenya stands out here. In the Daily Nation 78% of the stories written by women were main stories (that is the biggest story on the page). As we have mentioned earlier. In most newspapers the general rule is; the more important the story is the more space it will get. Our findings indicate that, in Kenya, although there are few women journalists in print media, when they write they also write the important stories. In Uganda we lack data on percentage of main stories written by women, but we have data on number of stories that made the front page which is 4 %. The percentage of front page stories by women in Kenya is the same.

It is difficult to draw any clear conclusions from the low number of front page stories. On the one hand it might indicate that editors rarely put female reporters on the big stories, but it might also be a random consequence of the fact that most reporters are male. Regardless of the reasons, UMWA and AMWIK would like to see more front page stories by female reporters. Not because that would automatically lead to more gender issues on the front page, but because an increase in front page stories by female journalists is a goal in itself.

Topic of the stories

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ediaTo find out if there are certain patterns in the topics that women journalists write about we registered the stories on various categories ranging from ‘government and politics’ to ‘celebrity, arts and media’. According to the GMMP from 2010 female journalists “continue to cover what are termed as ‘soft’ stories such as culture, health and other social issues rather than reporting what may be seen to be more challenging topics, such as politics, business, technology, science, elections and finance” (GMMP 2010:25). The same findings appear in the study done by the Eastern African Journalists Association in 2008 which states that “women journalists are mostly associated to report soft stories” (2008:4). Our findings however, show no clear tendencies in either direction. Women journalists in Uganda and Kenya seem to write about a wide range of issues, and this therefore one of quite few positive trends that we found in our research. The results show that many women journalists write stories that fall under the category ‘education, child care etc’ (in total for both Uganda and Kenya 14 % of the stories are on this topic). This is normally considered a soft topic. However, a high percentage (12 %) of the articles in both countries was on ‘hard’ topics such as ‘politics, government and election’. In the case of Kenya the topic of ‘Non-violent crime’ was the most frequent (14%) and in Uganda ‘riots, demonstrations and public disorder’ were reoccurring categories among the women reporters. These results might indicate that there is relatively little stereotyping in the distribution of stories in media houses in both Kenya and Uganda.

Gender perspectiveOut of a total of 401 articles written by female journalists only 6 had a gender perspective. Uganda was slightly better than Kenya with 2% versus 0,6 % but for both countries the number is depressingly low. Both Kenya and Uganda struggle with numerous gender issues. Domestic violence is widespread; women face discrimination and have an overall lower social status than men. These are apparent and important social issues that should be highlighted in the media, but our findings show that to a large extent they are ignored. That said, the findings are not surprising. In a report published by the East African Journalist Association in 2008 the overall view for Uganda was that “gender portrayal in the media was skewed in favour of men, and that gender awareness and sensitivity was not yet built into reporting requirements” ( EAJA 2008:40). In the case of Kenya the same report states that gender issues were “not a priority like other issues”. Only 6 out of 14 respondents in the study said that their media house reported on gender issues quite often (ibid: 28).

According to Nicole Johnstone from the South African Institute for the Advancement of Journalism, every issue is a gender issue. According to her, the reporters simply need to learn to identify the gender angles and draw these out. However, finding that gender angle requires training, something that many reporters seem to lack. Good gender reporting focuses not just on gender events and issues and a story with a woman as its subject is not automatically a gender story. To qualify as a story with a gender perspective it has to look at societal and/or political issues and how men and women are differently affected by these. It has also to discuss issues of power relations between men and women, as well as the dynamic nature of these relations. One of the reasons for the low number of stories with gender perspectives might be that reporters in Uganda and Kenya lack the skills to see events through a gendered lens. Another reason might be that they have a hard time pitching the ideas to the editor. In a

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16 research conducted by the Eastern African Sub-region Supporting Initiative for Advancement of Women (EASSI) many Ugandan reporters said that editors had scrapped stories about women or women’s issues because they did not find them newsworthy.

Female sourcesOne of the aims of this study was to find out whether or not women in Uganda and Kenya are underrepresented as news makers. But we also wanted to find out how well they are represented as news subjects. We therefore counted the number of female sources in all the stories written by women. The findings are not very uplifting; in total show 19 % of the articles in the 6 newspapers had one or more female sources. Kenya did slightly better than Uganda on this category with 20 % stories with female sources. In Uganda the Daily Monitor and The New Vision combined had 16 % stories with women’s voices.

According to the GMMP stories written by female reporters contain more female news subjects than stories by male reporters - a trend that has persisted over the past 10 years (GMMP 2010:27). It is therefore likely that the percentageage would have been even lower had we also looked at stories by male reporters5.

The fact that only 19 % of the articles had female sources indicate that the world as depicted in Kenyan and Ugandan news remains predominantly male. The lack of women’s voices, faces and opinions are not ethical and it does not offer a fair or balanced media. It results in news that presents a male-centred view of the world, and contributes to uphold beliefs that men are better sources of information and knowledge than women.

The reasons behind the exclusion of women’s voices are many and complex. As Nicole Johnstone from the South African Institute for the Advancement of Journalism notes; “The most readily available and accessible sources are likely to be men” (Gender in Media 2005:97). Therefore there is a need for the reporters to make conscious effort to seek out and reflect the voices of women and to achieve gender balance in media coverage.

The occupation or position of the sourcesOn this category certain occupations were more frequent. For both Kenya and Uganda

sources represented as government officials etc was high. In Kenya 20 % of the news sources were government officials, politicians, ministers etc. In Uganda the percentage was 33 %. This is in line with the findings from the GMMP where sources represented as government officials have increased with 7 % since 2000. The report states that this is consistent with trends in the increase of women holding public office; taking statistics on the world average of women in parliaments as a general guide, the real world statistic was 13% in 2000 and 19% in 2010. In the case of Uganda the cabinet at the time of this study only had 16 female ministers against 54 male ministers. It is therefore more likely that it is the frequent quotes from the spokesperson of the government (Ms. Kabakumba Labwoni Masiko) who has counted for the high percentage.

5 As explained earlier. Only looking at stories by women reporters was a way to limit the scope of our research. Ideally we would have included also stories by men, but being two researchers that would have been too much work.

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ediaIn Kenya, women comprise about 7 % of the current (10th) parliament. A considerable

number of the quotes from the female sources are from MP Hon. Martha Karua, followed by MPs like Beth Mugo, Sally Kosgei and Hellen Sambili6.

The function of the source in the storyIn the Kenyan newspapers the category of expert/commentator got the highest percentage (34%). In other words, most of the women sources in these papers have been quoted as experts or commentators. In Uganda two categories were equally big. When women speak as sources in The New Vision and Daily Monitor the story is either about them or something they have done, or they speak as spokespersons. These results differ from the ones in the GMMP 2010 where women were grossly underrepresented in the expert categories. It seems that women in Kenya and Uganda are not only included in news stories as ‘ordinary people’ but as providers of comments based on specialist knowledge or expertise as well as spokespersons representing or speaking behalf of groups. These statistics are encouraging as they indicate that the newspapers might help fight stereotypes of women and because the women’s exposure in the media might show to younger generations that the role of an expert is not only limited to a man.

Are women portrayed as victims?This is one of the clearest tendencies in our study. Very few women are portrayed as victims in the analysed newspapers. In total only 5 % of the female sources were described in ways that made them appear as victims. Since we have not done earlier studies we cannot say if this is a recent development. But the GMMP from 2010 suggests that globally there has been an overall reduction in the tendency to attribute victimhood to news subjects in the last five years. That said, we believe that the reason for the low %age of ‘victims’ in our sample is due to the topics of the stories rather than the portrayal of the sources in these stories. After reading through the newspapers, we registered few articles on topics such as accidents, violence and discrimination which are normally the topics where the sources are portrayed as victims. Therefore we can use these results to draw the conclusion that journalists no longer attribute victimhood to women.

Story highlights issues of inequality One story in the Ugandan newspapers and only 6 % of the stories in the Kenyan newspapers were clearly highlighting issues of inequality. These results are in line with the findings on the gender perspective category, where only 6 out of 401 stories handled gender issues. They are also in line with the GMMP where only 6 % of the stories talked of gender issues.

These findings could indicate that there is low gender awareness in the media houses and those editors or managers do not consider gender issue perspectives as relevant. As mentioned

6 The new Kenyan Constitution maintains a one third requirement for either gender in elective bodies giving women of Kenya at least 1/3 minimum in elective public bodies. Article 81 (b).

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18 earlier, journalists (male or female) might also have a hard time selling their ideas to the editor. Another reason might be that journalists in the news rooms are given assignments from a news room docket and that there is therefore little room for developing your own ideas.

Moreover, in certain stories, there might be obvious inequalities between men and women other stories require more thorough research to find a gender angle. As pointed out by the Executive Director of Gender Links, Colleen Lowe Morna, in most cases the reporter has to look for the gendered angle and ask the question on how this event would concern and affect men and women differently.

It is also important to mention that there is room for interpretation in this question. Does a story about a trial where a man is accused of killing a woman highlight inequalities between women and men? Or does a story on a women's group fighting for gender equality highlight inequalities? As for this study, stories where a source specifically comments on inequalities between women and men have been coded as stories highlighting gender inequalities. If the question had been interpreted differently, the %age probably would have been higher.

The story challenges gender stereotypesOut of all the stories with female sources in Uganda and Kenya 10 % challenged gender stereotypes. In Uganda there was only one such story. The title is “Use Degrees to Fight Graft, Says UCU Boss” and the story is about a professor at the Uganda Christian University encouraging his graduates to use their degrees constructively. In the last paragraph of the story the reporter adds a quote from the director of teaching, Ms Martha Kyoshaba, saying that 52 per cent of the graduates were female, while “only one gentleman was among the five students who obtained First Class degrees”. This last part of information challenges the stereotype that men are better students than women. Part of what makes this story challenge stereotypes is the way in which the information is presented. The fact that four out of five students who obtained a First Class degree were female is not presented as something sensational. On the contrary it is just stated as any other piece of information, something which is not surprising or strange.

Comparing Uganda and KenyaLooking at the overall result from the analysis there are very few marked differences between Kenya and Uganda. On most areas the number articles by women, the number of stories with women sources etc who quite similar findings. There might of course be differences between the two countries that we have not discovered in this analysis. Maybe we would have revealed more disparities if we had also looked at radio and TV or if we had analysed the employment pattern? Nevertheless, based on these findings it seems as if Uganda and Kenya and hence UMWA and AMWIK face many of the same challenges when working to improve the gender balance in print media7.

Conclusion7 One difference is of course that the sample size was bigger in the case of Kenya than Uganda.

That said, there are also more daily newspapers in English in Kenya than in Uganda where the Daily Monitor and The New Vision are the only two widely circulated daily newspapers in English.

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ediaPrint media is still dominated by men, both as news makers and news subjects. 16 % of the stories in the analysed Kenyan and Ugandan newspapers were written by women journalists. In the Kenyan case the big newspapers have a lower percentage of articles written by women than the smaller newspapers, The People and The Star.

19 % of the stories had female sources. However, when women sources are quoted, they appear in different functions and represent different occupations. Also, when women journalists write, they write on both “soft” and “hard” topics. Nevertheless, the number of front page stories written by women is low. As pointed out earlier, UMWA and AMWIK would like to see more front page stories by female reporters.

If the percentage of both female journalists and the percentage of female sources increases, the gender balance could become quite good.

Very few of the analysed stories challenge stereotypes, highlighted gender equality or had some kind of gender perspective. Only one story in Uganda and 6 % of the stories in Kenya highlighted gender inequalities. 10 % of the stories in Kenya and Uganda challenged gender stereotypes, and out of a total of 401 articles written by female journalists only 6 had a gender perspective.

These numbers show that there is still a long way to go in ensuring a balanced media coverage of women's issues, which is one of AMWIK and UMWA’s most important objectives. Women journalists might have the knowledge and the education that empowers them to highlight gender equality and challenge stereotypes in the media, however, due to various reasons; this is not yet made visible in the media.

Some recommendations This report shows us that the work that UMWA and AMWIK are doing to enhance gender equality in the media institutions is important and that is should be continued. There is still a need to encourage young women to venture into journalism, so that more women reporters start knocking on the doors of the big newspapers in both Uganda and Kenya. There is probably also a need to conduct trainings for those women and men who are already in the field of print media. For both women on men there is need for guidance on gender sensitive reporting and how to find gender angles. For the women media practitioners in particular there is also a need for training on the area of confidence building.

Moreover we believe that improved gender balance in the print media cannot be achieved only with bottom up change. There is also a need for work to be done on editorial and management levels. Editors should be aware of the gender imbalance in the media and consistently work to counter it by employing women reporters whenever possible.

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21W

omen in the m

ediaAbout the authors:Anne Kari Garberg holds a BA in Political Science from the University of Oslo, a MA in Gender Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London and a BA in journalism from the University College of Oslo. Before joining UMWA she worked as a radio journalist in the Norwegian Broadcasting Coorporation. She has worked with Uganda Media Women’s Association from October 2010 until August 2011.

Helen Tymi Ruud has a BA in Journalism from Bodø University College (now University of Nordland) in Norway. She also holds a BA in Languages and Literature from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. Before joining AMWIK as an FK (Fredskorpset) exchange participant in 2010-2011 she worked as a journalist in Norway.

SourcesGlobal Media Monitoring Project 2010, GMMP Report Published by the World Association for Christian Communication (WACC). September, 2010.

Enhancing Gender Equality in the Media in Eastern Africa.A Regional Study by Eastern Africa Journalists Association (EAJA)

Gender in Media Training: A Southern African Tool Kit.Edited by Colleen Lowe Morna, 2005

Sources from the webwww.umwamamafm.co.ug

www.amwik.org

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22 Subject of the StoryPolitics and government

1. Women in political power or decision-making 1

2. Women electoral candidates

3. Peace, negociations, treaties

4. Other domestic politics/government, elections, speeches, the political process 14

5. Global partnerships (international trade and finance systems, e.g. WTO, IMF, World Bank, debt) 3

6. Foreign/international politics, relations with other countries, negotiations, treaties, UN peacekeeping

7. National defence, military spending, military training, military parades, internal security 2

8. Other stories on politics and government (specify)

Economy 9. Economic policies, strategies, mode.ls 1

10. Economic indicators, statistics, business, trade, stock markets 7

11. Economic crisis, state bailouts of companies, company takeovers and mergers 1

12. Poverty, housing, social welfare, aid to those in need 1

13. Women’s participation in economic processes (informal work, paid employment, unemployment, unpaid labour)

14. Other labour issues, strikes, trade unions, negotiations, other employment and unemployment 2

15. Rural economy, agriculture, farming practices, agricultural policy, land rights 4

16. Consumer issues, consumer protection, regulation, prices, consumer fraud 1

17. Transport, traffic, roads

18. Other stories on the economy (specify) 1

Science and health19. Science, technology, research, funding, discoveries, developments 2

20. Medicine, health, hygiene, safety, disability, medical research, funding 2

21. HIV & AIDS, incidence, policy, treatment, people affected

22. Other epidemics, viruses, contagions, influenza, BSE, SARS 1

23. Birth control, fertility, sterilization, amniocentesis, termination of pregnancy

24. Environment, nature, pollution, global warming, ecology, tourism

25. Other stories on science and health (specify) 1

Social and legal26. Development issues, sustainability, community development 2

27. Education, child care, nurseries, pre-school to university, adult education, literacy 28

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28. Family relations, inter-generational conflict, single parents

29. Human rights, women’s rights, children’s rights, gay and lesbian rights, rights of minorities 2

30. Religion, culture, tradition, controversies, teachings, celebrations, practices

31. Migration, refugees, asylum seekers, ethnic conflict, integration, racism, xenophobia

32. Women’s movement, activism, events, demonstrations, gender equality advocacy

33. Changing gender relations, roles and relationships of women and men inside and outside the home

34. Family law, family codes, property law, inheritance law and rights 2

35. Legal system, judicial system, legislation (apart from family, property and inheritance law)

1

36. Other stories on social and legal issues (specify) 1

Crime and violence 37. Non-violent crime, bribery, theft, drug-dealing, corruption 2

38. Violent crime, murder, abduction, kidnapping, assault, drug-related violence 3

39. Gender-based violence, feminicide, harassment, domestic violence, rape, trafficking, genital mutilation

40. Child abuse, sexual violence against children, trafficking, neglect

41. War, civil war, terrorism, state-based violence

42. Riots, demonstrations, public disorder 6

43. Disaster, accident, famine, earthquake, flood, hurricane, plane crash, car crash

44. Other stories on crime and violence (specify) 2

Celebrity, arts and media, sports45. Celebrity news, births, marriages, deaths, obituaries, famous people,

royalty

46. Arts, entertainment, leisure, cinema, theatre, books, dance

47. Media, portrayal of women and/or men, pornography

48. Beauty contests, models, fashion, beauty aids, cosmetic surgery

49. Sports, events, players, facilities, training, policies, funding

50. Other stories on celebrities, arts, media (specify) 1

The girl child51. News about the girl child, including cultural attitudes and practices

impinging on girls, education, health, economic exploitation, violence (only when emphasis on the girl child)

52 (other)

Other 1

95

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