19 November 2008
Poor portrayal of pacific women
1 September 2006
By Ali Bell: Te Waha Nui Online
Despite Pacific women getting noticed in television, radio and print, their absence in media coverage and roles of leadership is poor, says an advocate for Pacific Island Women. Te Waha Nui investigates why.
Our Pacific sisters are getting noticed in television, radio and print, if only to note their absence in terms of media coverage and roles in leadership, says an advocate for Pacific Island women.
Women are poorly represented in Pacific media, often being shown as stereotypes or depicted in a negative way, says a former New Zealand Herald journalist.
Julie Middleton, who now works for the Pacific women’s bureau of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) in New Caledonia, spoke to Te Waha Nui recently on a trip to Auckland.
There are few women in top newsroom jobs, although they comprise about half the region’s journalists, she says.
The portrayal of Pacific women in the media as newsmakers and subjects is the focus of an action plan symposium taking place in Fiji this month.
Middleton is co-organiser of the symposium as part of SPC, along with UNESCO and the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association.
The draft action plan is about extending coverage of the Pacific Islands and extending leadership and decision-making positions to women.
Media is targeted frequently because of the power it wields.
“We want to get into the media’s collective heads so they understand,” says Middleton.
“The symposium is about getting people out of the newsroom and sitting down to think about how they portray women and how they could do better.”
She says the problem with newsrooms is people are working on instinct and making hurried decisions, so they fall back on stereotypes.
A recent study done by Informing Citizens and findings of The Global Media Monitoring Project show Pacific women are not reflected fairly in the Pacific media.
Women are commonly portrayed as victims, says Middleton.
“The man is asked his opinion of the event and the woman is photographed in a flood of tears. Women are often not asked their opinions.
“Culture often works against women as decision-makers. But you can’t leave half the population out of decision-making.”
One aim of the action plan is for media to get more women employed in newsrooms.
Another aim is to get more women employed in newsrooms, employ more women from different ethnic groups and ages, to identify their ambitions and give them the necessary training to get them into leadership positions.
Radio is the most popular source for news in the Pacific, says Middleton, although she adds that newspaper readership is increasing. The internet is also becoming more popular, despite the expense and limited access, she adds.
These are developing nations, she says, but the SPC “is about developing people” so they can be self-sustaining.
New Zealand seems to be holding its own in terms of Pacific reporting.
In the Global Media Monitoring Project, New Zealand stands out in terms of women’s representation in political news. On the study’s “scrutiny day” in 2000, women accounted for 40 per cent of politicians and government spokespeople in the news – higher than any other country.
TVNZ communications adviser Robin Field says the network as a whole has a close to equal gender split.
Of the news readers, 56 per cent are female and 44 per cent are male.
The same applies in leadership and decision-making, he says.
“From the top it’s a 50/50 split. We’ve many women in senior management positions, in strategic and operational positions.”
The heads of sales, programming, human resources and public affairs are all women.
Presenters of the Tagata Pasifika programme are equally represented by men and women. The senior director and producer are both male.
Angela Gregory, Pacific issues reporter on the New Zealand Herald, says she is very conscious of achieving an equal gender mix in her stories.
“It’s fair to say that a lot of the spokespeople are men in New Zealand. But I go to women for quotes.
“If anything I go more the other way and I’m guilty of talking to more women than men, and I have to find the men.
“I’m aware of women’s rights issues in the Pacific. But I probably report on Pacific issues completely differently to the way Pacific people do.
“When I go to the countries, I talk to the people in the street and villages.
“I talk to the people who don’t normally have a voice.”
