Some african women journalists still writing their stories with hand

Bimbola Ayesola is a woman journalist working at The Sun Publishing Ltd, a print media at Lagos, in Nigeria. She has attended the Highway Africa conference in Grahamstown from 11 to 15 september 2006.

She gives her views on the issues facing Nigerian journalists in the use of ICTs.

Talking about women representation in the print media, Bimbola says “not many women are working in the media compared to men. A lot of my colleagues have studied mass communication; they go in broadcasting media rather than print media.”

There’s a larger representation of women in television and radios in Nigeria as in other African countries. Some of the reasons she gave on this fact are low salaries in print media and working hours.” Women have many responsibilities at home, they have to leave the office early while men are still there and working”, she explained.

About the use of Information and communication technologies (ICTs), Bimbola explained that ‘ we are still writing our stories with the hand, then pass it to the typist. There are no laptops to work with at the newsroom.”

“If you want to connect to internet, you have to come earlier at the office, before the typists come and use the computers” she added.

This shows the sad reality of newsrooms in Africa. Women journalists still have a few access to ICTs. There have been ICTs workshops during the Highway conference to build African journalists skills. However, there is still a lot to do to ensure access and use of ICTs by women journalists in the continent.

More information on The Sun Publishing is available at www.sunnewsonline.com