A survey development team has been commissioned to investigate and collate data on the gender parity ratio of men to women across the executive management teams and board members of 84 media organisations in Nigeria by the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism (WSCIJ) under its Report Women! House to House. This was after the WSCIJ management met with the Report Women! House to House survey development team on Thursday, 12 May 2022.
The team will also conduct media monitoring to collate data of popular programmes on radio and television and also dedicated newspaper pages of select media organisations to ascertain their gender composition. The monthlong exercise across 13 media organisations in the electronic and print media will anaylse presenters/anchors (electronic media), reporters, resource persons, and experts in their flagship programmes and newspaper pages. These data will help WSCIJ strategically engage the leadership and members of staff of these selected media organisations on the need for gender balance between men and women in their news and newsrooms.
In a related development, the centre also met with the Report Women! Source Guide team on Thursday, 26 May 2022 where the scope, objectives, expectations, and project timelines were discussed. The commissioned source guide team will document a list of female experts across seven strategic sectors- education, security, law and governance, media, politics and human rights agriculture, business and economy, health and science. The female expert source website will help the Nigerian media and journalists have access to suitable sources for news, programmes, and editorials. It is part of WSCIJ’s drive to bridge the gap and promote the inclusion of women and those with disabilities as news sources and experts.