Female Journalists and Safety Challenges in Selected Media Organizations in Kano State, Nigeria

Abstract

Journalism schools have being witnessing an increase in female enrollment in Nigeria, but this is not proportional to the number of women who work in media organizations. For the women who eventually get employed as journalists,they experience various safety challenges which affect their advancement and continued presence in journalism. This chapter looked at safety challenges faced by female journalists in selected media organizations in Kano state of Nigeria. The study was hinged on spiral of silence theory to show how female journalists keep mute about the challenges they experience and prefer to report the so-called soft news. The study used focus group discussion and in-depth interview as the research methodology. Four sessions were held with each group consisting of eight female journalists. Findings show that majority of the participants had experienced threats, attacks,harassments, marginalization, and discrimination. In addition, most media organizations do not have laid down safety policies except for a few safety measures when the need arises.