The Hindu's Aditi Seshadri reviews a book on a subject very close to our hearts here at WVON: how gender bias operates in the media. The book is Kalpana Sharma's Missing Half the Story: Journalism as if Gender Matters, and she takes as her starting point:
"A journalist is not just a journalist. She or he carries baggage, from earlier socialisation, from present day influences and from realities about which they had no choice – such as gender or caste... Only the more honest (journalist) will admit that there can never be anything like “objective” journalism and that everything we write is ultimately mediated by our own hidden and open biases'."
Amen to that. As WVON readers and editors are all too aware, the (lack of ) coverage of women's news is half the issue, and the other half is how we cover stories relating to women. According to the Global Media Monitoring Project, only 24% of the people interviewed, heard, seen or read about in mainstream broadcast and print news coverage are female, while male viewpoints continue to dominate the mainstream media, often relegating feminist perspectives to the fringe.
Sharma peppers the book's theoretical framework with practical examples of international news stories that demonstrate her point. Although Seshadri criticises some of the jargon in the book, the overall review is a positive one, making me think this is definitely one for the WVON newsroom - when we get one, that is!
