Round Table in Pakistan
On March 1, 2006, Uks Research Centre held a roundtable on ‘Who Makes the News’. It was an attempt to brainstorm on how to develop the skills of our media in understanding human rights and documenting the experiences of women in situations of disaster using the human rights framework.
The participants also deliberated on how to increase the number of women in media. The recommendations and suggestions from this roundtable would enable Uks to identify the areas as well those media persons who would contribute more meaningfully in advocating for women’s human rights, promoting rights-based reporting as well as their inclusion in media.
Giving an overview of the background and objectives of today’s event, Ms. Tasneem Ahmar, Director Uks said that her organisation has always been struggling to promote gender equality in the media. It has through the sensitization workshops and on-desk consultations tried to challenge and change the mind sets of the news media, editors, media owners and journalists all across Pakistan and have urged them to show their commitment to this issue by taking substantial and immediate action to ensure that the news media represents women and men in a fair and balanced way.
Sadly though, despite all these efforts, the media continues to be heavily male-dominated. Women are still not given due representation either in the newsrooms or in the news. They who make up 48% of the population in Pakistan– only make up a tiny fraction of the country’s newsrooms and news story subjects. This male domination of our newsrooms becomes overwhelmingly prominent during news coverage of disasters or crisis. The recent earthquake in Pakistan is just another example of how men decide what news; views and visuals should be heard, read and seen. No wonder then that most of the news coverage was devoid of gender sensitivity, presenting women as mere helpless victims.
She said that it is in this perspective that Uks would like to look at the issue of disaster reporting in an attempt to promote justice and the empowerment of women in the region. Uks has initiated a project that looks at these issues through a series of media training workshops focusing on ethical questions that have arisen in the recent media coverage. We would like to facilitate the exchange of information and skills to strengthen media’s capacities.
Linking the RT with Who Makes the News, Ms. Ahmar said that WACC (World Association for Christian Communication) has been actively involved in media monitoring across the globe. They are concerned that women make up 52% of the world’s population – but only make up a tiny fraction of the world’s news story subjects.This prompted them to initiate a campaign in which for one day in 1995 and again in 2000, men and women in 70 countries came together to scrutinise the portrayal of women and men by the world news by monitoring stories in newspapers, TV and radio. The results showed that on one day in 1995, women were 17% of news subjects. In 2000, five years later, women were only 18% of news subjects worldwide.
In February 2005, the experience was repeated when WACC supported organisations and individual in 76 countries around the world to monitor their media for one day under GMMP (Global Media Monitoring Project). It took them almost one year to gather and analyse all the results (12,893 news items on televisio
n, radio and in newspapers) from around the world. WACC has announced the findings of this ‘Global Media Monitoring Project’ on February 16, 2006.The results show that women are 21% of news subjects. Indicating that they have been able to feature just a little more than 2000.
Unfortunately, Pakistan was not among these 76. The reason: The researcher hired for this job could not complete her study as her hard disk crashed thus resulting in complete loss of all her data. This also indicates towards absence of any national report on the portrayal of women/men in the Pakistani media as well as lack of media monitoring.
It may also be added that the one and only media (print) study based on desk and Uks did field research in 2001-2002. Titled Changing Images, this remains to be the only media monitoring report so far.
From February 16- March 8, the International Women’s Day WACC also launched the Three Weeks of Action to Challenge News Media worldwide to ensure that both men and women ‘make the news.
She said that this RT is a three in one affair:
- It is an act of solidarity with the Three Weeks of Action on Gender and Media
- It is an event to celebrate International Women’s Day
- It is a curtain-raiser for our series of workshops on gender-sensitive disaster reporting
This RT is aimed towards promoting gender equality through and in the media
- It is also aimed at challenging media managers, editors, owners/proprietors and journalists in Pakistan to express their commitment to this issue by taking substantial and immediate action to ensure that the news media represents women and men in a fair and balanced way.
Ms. Ahmar also shared a recent research conducted by Uks that monitored the press coverage of disaster of the October 8 earthquake (from November till February) in the following newspapers: Dawn - The Nation - The News - The Daily Times - The Frontier Post - Pakistan Observer – Jang - Nawa-i-Waqt
Out of a total of 1724 news items, 1362 featured men or were general information; only 362 news reports had women in them, either as news or as a visual. This leaves us with a big question: What kind of reporting there has been for the past four months, and what kind of reporting should we look at all levels and sections of the media. Pakistan has featured in the world media in a big way, and perhaps it is for the first time in many years that Pakistan has featured in a non-terrorist story. We have seen Pakistan in the world headlines and may continue to see different stories emanating out of the earthquake. The question is: Where are the women in these news reports? With it also comes the question: would the situation be different if there were more women in the media?
The participants, mostly belonging to the media narrated their own experiences of disaster reporting and how things could improve. They were of the view that policies need to be altered and changed at the higher levels. More women must be inducted in the media and they must be given all issues as beats. Suzanna came up with the argument that although the western reporters and the media has covered the earthquake from every angle, including gender and some very powerful stories have come out of this effort, there has not been much focus on the gender issue in the Pakistani media.
This indicates towards an obvious connection between female reporters and things being reported on females. She narrated her own experience of being in a very remote and conservative village in the NWFP (North WestFrontierProvince) where she was allowed to speak to the women but her camera person was not. This she felt could be an obstruction. She also mentioned that in some Pakistani English newspapers she saw very good reports on women and when she looked at the byline, it was a woman. Suzanna felt that women empowerment in the earthquake areas is a very powerful issue and must be dealt with effectively.
According to her observation, women in many of these quake-hit areas have actually come out of the four-walls for the first time. They have been forced to step out and look after themselves and also others. For many women, this in itself is an experience they may never forget. They are actually appearing to be more liberated now. But this change is not really reflected in the media.
Aijaz Mahar of BBC said that this was very true as he had experienced it himself while reporting extensively from disaster areas. According to him, nearly all of these areas are strictly guarded by traditional values and customs. Male reporters are not allowed in most of these areas and have no access to the women. This is the main hurdle in reporting on women’s issues, such as mentioned earlier. There are so many personal stories of women who have been struggling for the well being of their families, who are actively participating in the relief operation and also contributing in the reconstruction efforts. Very few of these women make it to the media.
Aasma Shirazi, the only female television reporter to be at the disaster sites said that right after the earthquake she spent 12 days in the disaster areas and lived in most miserable conditions, but that was all taken as part of the job. According to Aasma, she felt that although there were many issues, the biggest was that of pregnant women. There were o proper hospitals, at times there were no female doctors.
These women did not want to be inspected by male doctors. They did not want to be moved from their own location. This was reflected in the media. Another issue was of non-availability of proper toilets. She herself used to walk almost twenty miles to reach a toilet. Most women were using far off fields to relieve themselves. These were two big issues that appeared very minor among other issues of disaster. But we took them up at higher levels and urged the governments to provide women these required facilities. I think I have not really done justice to these two issues and have not covered them as I should have. These stories get lost when there are big political stories.
Ms. Fazila stressed on the fact that it has become almost a norm to assign women issues to female journalists. This should not happen. Women are equally capable of taking on other beats including politics and economy and there are some very fine female journalists in Pakistan who are doing it, but their number is negligible.
There were a number of other comments and remarks. One thing that was very prominent was the need for inducting more female journalists to have a better and more sensitised perspective in the media, other was training of all staff-male and female-on how to cover disaster more effectively.
Participants
Mr. Umer Farooq: AVT-Khyber Television-Islamabad
Ms. Tahira Sarwar: UN Information Centre-Islamabad
Mr. Inamur Rehman: INP-News agency-Islamabad
Ms. Suzanna Koster: Trouw (Dutch News agency)-Islamabad
Mr. Mohammed Ishtiaq- BBC Urdu Service-Islamabad
Mr. Aijaz Meher: BBC Urdu service-Islamabad
Ms. Aasma Shirazi: Geo Television-Islamabad
Mr. Naeem Jadoon: Daily Jinnah-Islamabad
Mr. Sohail Khan: Daily Pakistan- Islamabad
Ms. Fazila Gulrez: Freelance writer and journalist
Ms. Saadia Haq: Producer: Uks Radio Project-Islamabad
Ms. Qudsia Mahmood: Coordinator-Producer, Uks Radio Project
Moderator:
Ms. Tasneem Ahmar: Director Uks Research Centre-Islamabad
