Ronald Deo
SUVA: Women are "grossly underrepresented" in news media coverage in Fiji on contrast to men, the Fiji Media Watch has found in a survey just made public, Fijivillage reports.
The FMW coordinated the survey on November 10 last year.
During the launch at a Suva hotel, monitoring coordinator Fulori Turaqa highlighted that the survey showed males dominated the three major media - radio, newspapers and television.
Turaqa said 23 percent females were reporters or presenters for print and radio stations, however for national television the rate was 27 percent female representation.
She said news continued to portray a world in which men outnumbered women in almost all occupational categories, the highest being the professionals.
Among people interviewed or heard in the news, women remained in the "ordinary" category in contrast to men who continued to predominate in the "expert" category, Turaqa said.
However, when Fijivillage told Turaqa, that this was not a true picture for Communications Fiji Limited (owners of Fijivillage and several radio stations) newsroom as there was "equal representation" of male and female reporters, she accepted that some information received may be incorrect as monitoring was done on a particular day.
[Audio file].
She fagreed that newsrooms may have different policies.
[Audio file].
The FMW will start going out to various stakeholders with the report from this Friday. - Fijivillage.com/Pacific Media Watch
Pacific Media Watch
