KADUNA- The Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism (WSCIJ) has urged media organisations to bridge gender gaps in leadership and news representation.
It said that this would strengthen accountability and transparency among the Journalism professionals.
This is contained in a statement by the centre’s Executive Director, Motunrayo Alaka, on Saturday in Kaduna.
This is in commemoration of the International Women’s Day 2025 with the theme “For ALL Women and Girls: Rights. Equality. Empowerment”.
Alaka said that findings from the WSCIJ’s “who leads the newsrooms and the news report’’ highlighted disparities with men dominating leadership positions and women underrepresented in news content.
“Across 111 surveyed media organisations, women hold 25.7% of leadership positions, while men dominate at 74.3%.
“The imbalance is even wider in print and online media, where female leadership representation is only 4.6% and 5.5%, respectively,’’ she said.
She said that this leadership gap influences whose stories are told and how they are framed.
“They feature in just 7.1% of news stories and make up 12.1% of expert sources, limiting their voices in policymaking, governance, and social change,” she said.
According to her, WSCIJ had taken bold step to address such imbalances by actively engaging media houses through its House-to-House initiative, as part of the Report Women! Programme.
She added that the centre worked with the News Agency of Nigeria and other media organisations on the need for newsrooms to deepen their accountability journalism mechanisms.
Alaka explained that the Report Women! Programme had trained 537 journalists across Nigeria and Ghana.
”It has produced 86 fellows under the Female Reporters Leadership Programme (FRLP) since its inception in 2014.
”It also supported 138 newsroom leadership projects focused on women and girls, published 136 investigative stories on gender-related issues and recognised 17 outstanding female journalists.”
She stated that six documentaries and eight media monitoring reports were produced, adding that five research reports on gender representation in the media were conducted.
One of such research report, ‘Missing Data, Missing Justice,’ provides empirical evidence on how sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) cases are reported by the media.
It also traced how the cases progressed through the justice system.
“To further address the injustices, WSCIJ launched the “Report Women! Experts’ Source Guide’ as part of its 10th anniversary October 2024.
“A database of 500+ female experts across eight sectors, ensuring journalists have access to diverse female perspectives,” she said.
Alaka stated that the International Women’s Day 2025 was a call to action for news media owners, publishers, journalists, policymakers and other stakeholders to drive structural change towards accountability journalism.
According to her, accountability Journalism can be achieved through gender equality in both newsroom leadership and media representation.
She added that the media must adopt intentional strategies to promote gender-balance.
She recommended that there should be gender balance in hiring and leadership advancement in newsrooms while creating safer and more inclusive workplaces that eliminate bias and harassment.
Alaka, however, said that increased visibility of women in news coverage as experts and subjects and support training, mentorship, and leadership development for female journalists must be encouraged.
At the WSCIJ “we remain steadfast in our mission to champion accountability journalism which includes equity between men and women in the practice and content of journalism.
“It is time to accelerate actions that lead to newsrooms that reinforce systemic equalities for girls and women,” she said. (NAN)
