INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Kathmandu, August 27
Working journalists, persons from media fraternity and stakeholders have stressed the need to create women-friendly
environment and infrastructure in media houses.
Speaking at a programme organised by Freedom Forum, many speakers underscored the need to
make media houses women-friendly.
As per the Freedom Forum report, of the major news with bylines of nine national dailies, only nine per
cent of such bylines were of female journalists in 2017 and 2018
Such bylines had increased to 12 per cent in the first six months of 2019.
Participants in the programme also said that media houses should
formulate written guidelines and adopt media ethics to increase the number of female journalists.
Many female journalists at the programme
said that despite their professional expertise, lack of trust in women journalists hadhindered their professional growth
Chairperson of Working Women Journalist Amika Rajkhala said, &Many female journalists, despite being capable and having years of
experience,are limited to the social beat as theyare not trusted to cover major news stories.&
Similarly, Nanu Khadka of Freedom Forum said
news rooms in Nepali media houses lacked breastfeeding rooms for lactating women journalists and women-friendly washrooms
Other female journalists said lack of women-friendly environment in newsrooms had kept women from pursuing their career in
journalism.
However, Editor of The Himalayan Times Prakash Rimal said no news beat could be categorised as mainstream as every news beat had
its own importance.
He also said there might be many women journalists working in senior posts, so research work should include these women
too.
Chairperson of Freedom Forum Hari Binod Adhikari, expressing solidarity with female journalists, said that there should be equal
participation of male and female journalists in media houses.
According to the Department of Information, of the 3,363 journalists
registered with it, only around 16 per cent of them (534) are female journalists, and 2,829 of them are men.
Similarly, of the 460
registered editors only 48 (around 12 per cent) of them are female editors.
Of the 292 freelance reporters registered with the DoI only
seven of themare female and of the 140 registered photo journalists, only four are female photo journalists.
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women-friendly: Stakeholders appeared first on The Himalayan Times.
