Pakistan's Newsrooms Marginalize Women, Confined to Soft Beats: Report

The survey examined news output on May 6 last year. Researchers argued that even though the review covered a single day, it revealed entrenched patterns that have shaped women's visibility for decades, as reported by Dawn.

According to Dawn, volunteers tracked content across nine newspapers, six television stations, a radio outlet run by the Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation, and four online news portals. The data showed that women formed only 11 per cent of news subjects in traditional media, a figure the report described as evidence of continuing exclusion from coverage of politics, business, crime and sports. Where women did appear, it was largely in entertainment-driven spaces. Nearly two-thirds of subjects in arts and culture reports were women, alongside a stronger presence in health and science. But in hard-news categories, including gender-based violence, representation frequently fell to negligible levels.

Digital outlets, however, presented a comparatively better picture. Women accounted for about a quarter of subjects online and featured more prominently in political, legal and health reporting. In internet coverage of GBV, they were central to every story reviewed. The imbalance extended to newsroom labour. Female bylines in print were rare, and when women did present news, they were overwhelmingly anchors rather than field correspondents, as highlighted by Dawn.

Male journalists, meanwhile, reported the vast majority of stories, even those centred on women. The report also found that women were more likely to be identified by marital or family status, received a small fraction of direct quotations, and were less visible in photographs. Only one per cent of all items challenged gender stereotypes or addressed equality concerns, as reported by Dawn.

- ANI