Newspaper writers and gender

        Women started to work for the Philippine journalism industry after the Second World War. Before that, they were reduced to staying at home and taking care of their families. Perhaps this change was brought about by the sudden boom of media outlets after the years of suppression by the Japanese military. This event gave women the opportunity to join the numerous, proliferating newspapers and other news channels.

        Nowadays, names of women can be read on broadsheets. Sometimes, their bylines are seen accompanying the banner stories.

        In the survey that I did concerning the front page writers of a certain newspaper--particularly their gender in relation to the topic they wrote about--I concluded that there are more male headline writers than women. Though there are female journalists whose articles become banner stories in general, in my five-day survey, there is only one. The topic she wrote about was politics. In fact, the banner stories of the past five days are all political talk.

        The male writers in the front page wrote about politics except for one who took on the topic about the visit of One Direction in the Philippines last weekend. On the other hand, female writers had more variety in the subjects they wrote about. Some wrote about politics while others chose entertainment, lifestyle, technology and issues concerning health and science, respectively. An editorial by a female senator was present, as well.

        Current banner stories are about politics given the present situation of the country. Even before the Mamasapano and “Fallen 44” issue, the most trending topic in Philippine media was about the government, with the exception of the coverage on the visit of Pope Francis last January. The conditions of a country influences what stories newspapers are going to be focused on. As for the gender of the journalists, it is not as though there is discrimination or stereotypes on gender on topic assignation, but it is according to the editor’s judgment on a writer’s ability to handle specific news categories. It is the editor who is responsible for whoever gets a respective story. He appropriates according to what he perceives is the expertise of an individual writer. For instance, if the editor knows that a journalist is a sports fan or was part of the school varsity, it is likely that he would choose that journalist to write a story for the sports section.

        If ever there is some unequal treatment of both genders, it may be due to the editor. Writers do not make their own decisions on what they report, otherwise, there would be issues left untackled for the sake of well-liked topic that everyone might fight over. This would lead to unhealthy relationships within the same company.

        Though it is not entirely impossible for there to be discrimination in media offices, the present generation seems to be aware of it to try and eradicate it. Hopefully, today’s educated youth would be able to take our society to another step forward from this backward social views.