AN EXPLORATORY STUDY OF GENDER DIVERSITY IN NEWSROOMS WITHIN THREE MAINSTREAM MEDIA ORGANISATIONS IN ZIMBABWE: A STAKEHOLDER PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

Despite more women entering the media industry in Zimbabwe, there are still fewer women than men
who are employed by the country’s major media houses — and even fewer in leadership positions.
These statistics are concerning given the important role that media play in society, and in the light of
Zimbabwe’s entrenched patriarchal structure. Women constitute more than 50% of Zimbabwe’s
population, which means that the majority of the people in the country are not intimately involved with
this key societal estate. This study looked at gender diversity at three of Zimbabwe’s mainstream media
houses and why women continue to lag behind men in terms of occupying key leadership positions in
the newsroom. The study was purely qualitative entailing the use of focus groups and face-to-face
interviews. Purposive sampling was used to identify the 30 participants. Some of the highlighted factors
behind this state of affairs included entrenched patriarchal views, too much power wielded by editors
in selection, unconscious bias during interview as well as the country’s toxic political climate. Some
recommendations that were offered were that succession planning should be approached more
deliberately, newsroom culture to change and be more conducive for women to work in granting them
equal opportunity.