The Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism, WSCIJ, has revealed that there was a major gap in the ratio of female to male representation in leadership positions in many of the Nigerian newsrooms.

Adeolu Adekola, WSCIJ Senior Programme Officer made this known during visits made to the Voice of Nigeria and Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria, by the Centre.

He explained that the visit was organised as a response to an online survey the WSCIJ conducted in selected media organisations in the country.

The visits were planned as a chat on gender policy and practices with members of staff, including top management and head of desks of media houses under the “Report Women! Female Reporters Leadership Programme”.

The WSCIJ Coordinator, Motunrayo Alaka, presented the results of the analysis of the online survey fielded by 72 respondents across 15 media organisation in the country.

According to her, the result shows the absence of a clear-cut gender policy in most of the select media organisations.

She however, noted that some of the media houses made up for the lack of codified policy in practice.

Speaking on ‘What, how and why of gender mainstreaming in policy and in practice for the media’ at the events, Rotimi Sankore, an editorial management consultant, noted that the issues of discrimination and gender disparity must be done away with if Nigeria must develop as a nation.

According to him, women determine the rate of development in any society. Talking of the media, he said, CNN stands out because the women reporters are as outspoken as their male counterparts.

At Voice of Nigeria (VON), religion and culture were brought to fore as major issues that needed to be tackled if gender parity must be attained in newsrooms.

Also, it was mentioned that there is a need to sensitise and re-orientate female would be journalists from school so they are ready to engage in a healthy competition with their male counterpart in the newsroom and not think of themselves less as a result of their gender.