In my last post I have mentioned that women are not served as equally as men in the field of journalism. One of the reasons I have mentioned in my last post regarding unequal attitude toward female reporters is that “women do not write reports on world news and politics as much as men do”, claimed by Corinne Segal, the Senior Multimedia Web Editor for PBS NewsHour Weekend. To find out more about why gender inequality is a fact in present day journalism and what stops majority of female journalists from writing reports on politics, world news, crimes, corruption I have decided to check out other sources. It is not surprising that female journalists experience various threats by means of text messages, emails, anonymous phone calls, in person over the issues of either reporting on a famous person or writing a piece of news on a crime investigation or covering an ongoing international conflict. As reported by Ankita Rao, an editor at the Guardian US, “In a 2018 study by the International Women’s Media Foundation and Trollbusters, 58% of female journalists surveyed had been threatened or harassed in person, and 28% had been attacked.” History shows that many female journalists encountered life threatening situations even died while on duty. Marie Catherine Colvin, an British/American journalist died while covering siege of Homs in Syria, Daphne Anne Caruana Galizia, a Maltese journalist, anti-corruption activist, an investigative journalist, died in a car bomb explosion. “The threats–both physical and digital–can affect mental health and increase journalists’ reluctance and fear to work,” reported by Attila Mong, a freelance journalist and CPJ’s reporter. All this information establish how female journalists are holding on to their jobs risking their lives. It is their rights to save their lives as well their families, considering their families are also threatened because of the danger related to their jobs. Due to lack of safety, many female journalists discontinue to write stories on delicate issues such as political corruption and crime. To ensure the presence of equal number of female and male journalists in the newsroom, safe working environment for female journalists needs to be established. In addition, social medias like Facebook, Twitter can strengthen their policies against online threats in such a way so that any intimidating texts or emails over the reports on a famous person or statements on a crime investigation get deleted before even reaching the inbox of female reporters. As I have mentioned in my last post, during the 21st century, when females are more college-educated than males, only safety cannot be an issue to bring down the number of female reporters in the office.
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