Thursday, 28th March 2024
To guardian.ng
Search

Why female politicians deserve better coverage

By Gbenga Salau
01 February 2015   |   11:00 pm
THE role of the media as campaign platform and public sphere during elections especially will not be discharged efficiently unless the right to equitable media access is enjoyed by all political actors regardless of their gender.   In fact, section 1.2 of the newly released Nigerian Media Code of Election Coverage (NMCEC) tasks media organisations…

Women-participants--

THE role of the media as campaign platform and public sphere during elections especially will not be discharged efficiently unless the right to equitable media access is enjoyed by all political actors regardless of their gender.

  In fact, section 1.2 of the newly released Nigerian Media Code of Election Coverage (NMCEC) tasks media organisations to design a deliberate editorial policy that targets “under-represented groups, especially women, youths, persons living with disabilities and rural dwellers in the coverage of electoral processes.” The section goes further to underscore the need to “reflect the views and perspectives of women, youths, persons living with disabilities and rural dwellers in electoral reports.”

  And for the objective of this provision of the NMCEC to be realized as it concerns womenfolk especially, a two-day media engagement forum was held for female candidates from the South West, North, South-south and South-east on deepening understanding and improving the use of conventional and new/social media for campaigns and other electoral activities in Ibadan and Abuja recently.  

  The forum was facilitated by the International Press Centre (IPC), Lagos with the support of the Democratic Governance for Development (DGD) Project II of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and its partners including the European Union (EU).

   At the Ibadan and Abuja outings, there were about 40 participants each consisting of female candidates contesting for governorship, senatorial, House of Representatives and State House of Assembly seats on different political party platforms in the Southwest. 

   Among the political parties represented at the forum were KOWA, ACCORD Party (AP), All Progressives Congress (APC), National Conscience Party (NCP), Labour Party (LP), Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Social Democratic Party (SDP) and Alliance for Democracy (AD). The participants also included Editors and Reporters from the print, broadcast and online media.

  The objectives included the need to deepen the female candidates’ understanding of the workings of the media; the need to ensure that female candidates maximize the opportunities offered by the conventional and social media in projecting their candidature and issues; the need to share experiences and discuss the challenges faced by female candidates in engaging the media in the course of their political activities especially campaigns; the need to highlight the right of media access for female politicians as party members and as candidates under relevant legislations and institutional frameworks and the need to develop an action plan that will ensure that the media contributes significantly to the success of female candidates at the February polls.

   The forum also took into consideration prevalent observations that media coverage and reportage of elections is almost always skewed in favour of male politicians while negative perceptions and stereotypes about female politicians still exist in the media; hence the need to come up with strategies that will help address the prevailing gender imbalance in the reporting of elections.

  Some of the topics considered were: Female candidates and campaigns: Winning the support of reporters/editors, getting the best of the newsroom which was delivered by Mrs. Tinuola Ayanniyi, Associate Editor (News), Nigerian Tribune; Understanding the broadcast media: Opportunities for positive and wide outreach was presented by Mr. Diji Akinhanmi, Director News/Current Affairs, Ogun State Television (OGTV); Projection of candidature and issues: Best practice for result oriented use of the new and social media by Mr. Qasim Akinreti, Social Media Expert and News Manager, Voice of Nigeria (VON); Understanding the rights of female candidates in securing equitable media access: Overview of relevant electoral legislative and institutional frameworks was treated by Mr. Lanre Arogundade, Director, International Press Centre (IPC); and The art of writing press releases by Mr. Sanmi Falobi; Program Associate, IPC and Online Editor, Nigerian Democratic Report (NDR)  

 
The participants observed that most female candidates lack adequate knowledge about relating with and engaging the media for positive projection. They also noted that most female politicians lack adequate knowledge of their rights as political party members and candidates under relevant electoral institutional and legislative frameworks.

   For them, the society especially its major institutions like the media, the political parties, the civil society etc, are not doing enough to encourage women participation in governance and election into political offices;

  They also believed that women politicians and women groups need to do more and demand for the implementation of gender affirmative policies. 

  “Activities of female candidates are not being adequately covered and reported by the media. The demand for payment for news or coverage and high costs of political advertorials sometimes discourage female candidates from reaching out to the media. Female and male candidates should have equal rights and opportunities to use the media to disseminate information on their electoral activities.”

   In moving forward, the participants suggested that the print, broadcast and online media whether private or government owned should as a matter of deliberate editorial policy grant more opportunities for female candidates to reach the electorate with their political messages.

   It was also recommended that capacity building programmes should be continuously organized for women in politics in order to address obvious knowledge gaps about electoral legislations, political rights and the right of access to the media. This is besides political parties should adopt the principle of affirmative action in the selection or election of candidates while also taking up the responsibility of deliberately building the capacity of female aspirants and candidates towards making a success of their aspirations.

   The participants also believed that relevant government agencies, especially the National Orientation Agency (NOA) should take it as a responsibility to organize sensitization and capacity building programmes for female aspirants and candidates prior to elections. 

0 Comments