KATHMANDU, April 20: Female politicians occupy only 6.04 percent of media coverage in Nepal, according to a report published by the Media Advocacy Group (MAG) on Wednesday.
MAG released the report after conducting a three-month study on coverage of women politicians in the mainstream media. The study was conducted from January 2023 to March 2023.
In the report, it is stated that a total of 3,176 articles related to politics were published in eight daily newspapers in these three months. Among them, only 192 items were related to women politicians. This means that female politicians occupy only 6.04 percent of Nepal's media.
The eight newspapers that were monitored for this report were Gorkhapatra Daily, The Rising Nepal, Kantipur, The Kathmandu Post, Nagarik Daily, Annapurna Post, Naya Patrika and The Himalayan Times.
Community is the key
The main objective of the media study conducted on the situation of women politicians in the mainstream media was to analyze the materials published in the print media regarding politics from a gender perspective. MAG states that the purpose of this report was to prepare a document to advocate equality in the context that the coverage of women politicians in the media is very low.
During a panel discussion program organised by MAG on Wednesday, Ram Kumari Jhakri, leader of CPN Unified Socialist and a former minister said that while there are a number of women politicians in various political parties as well as in parliament, their number is very less when it comes to decision-making level. “Women’s participation is seen in politics. They are given the seats in political parties or parliament as per the Constitution of Nepal. However, there are very few women politicians at the decision-making level,” she said.
According to the report’s findings, it was found that the media's priority was more towards women politicians who are in executive positions. Meanwhile, the news of male politicians are published even though they are not in important positions.
Similarly, Amrita Thapa Magar, leader of CPN (Maoist Center) mentioned that the main reason for low coverage of women politicians in the media is the patriarchal mindset of the society. “There are lots of stereotypical views regarding how a woman expresses herself. While if a man speaks, they are said to express their views logically, but when a woman does the same, they are said to be gossiping,” she said. “As our society is a patriarchal society, there is a difference in views regarding how men and women express their views. This is one of the major reasons for low coverage of women politicians in the media.”
The report states that women politicians must reach important positions in order to get media coverage.For instance, the media coverage received by Former President Bidhya Devi Bhandari, Minister of Communications and Information and Technology Rekha Sharma, and Former Minister for Foreign Affairs Bimala Rai Paudyal can be taken as example. Communication Minister Rekha Sharma is the spokesperson of the government, therefore, the things she said have got an important place.
Likewise, editors of various media houses commented that to increase the coverage of women politicians in the mainstream media, it is important to have women journalists in the newsroom. Kosh Raj Koirala, editor of Republica Daily, affirmed that more women journalists should cover important issues like politics and economy which will result in increased coverage of women politicians.
Koirala also mentioned that the journalists tend to quote male politicians more in the news as their sources at decision-making level are mostly male politicians. “To build proper news, sources are important. It is obvious that journalists tend to quote the sources who are able to give them proper information,” he said. “As male politicians have proper access to such information than female politicians due to the fact that they are in a higher level of decision making, there seems to be less quotes and coverage of female politicians in the media.”
Among the eight newspapers, Gorkhapatra Daily has the most coverage about women politicians. Women politicians have received 25.5 percent of the total coverage in Gorkhapatra. Similarly, the coverage of women politicians in The Rising Nepal was 17.7 percent followed by 12.5 percent in Annapurna Post, 12 percent in Kathmandu Post, 11.5 percent in Kantipur Daily, 8.3 percent in Naya Patrika, 6.8 percent in The Himalayan Times and 5.7 percent in Nagarik Daily.
