Media Firm Cautions Journalists Against Negative Reportage on Women
PRNigeria, a media organisation, has called for an end to negative media stereotyping of women in Nigeria, as promiscuous species.
Ms Rahma Oladosu, Staff Writer, PRNigeria, said at a news briefing in Abuja on Monday that there has been a lot of misinformation, disinformation, fake news and stereotypes against Nigerian women, in the media landscape.
Oladosu said that was why the female staff of Image Merchants Promotion Limited (IMPR), the publisher of PRNigeria and Economic Confidential, called the news conference to address the issue.
“As media practitioners and concerned Nigerian women, we have noticed with dismay, the dangerous tendency of the media in Nigeria.
“Those involved often sensationalise and escalate any story or incident that is targeted at generalising negativity and destroying the hard-earned reputation of the womenfolk in this country.
“A seemingly misogynistic section of the Nigerian press has been portraying our women as morally bankrupt, unintelligent and having nothing to offer, apart from their makeup and bodies.
“Our women are being portrayed as people who are meant to have fewer opinions on issues that surround them and also as the inferior ones who are supposed to depend on others for validation”, she said.
Oladosu said the tendency, on the part of the media as gatekeepers to excitedly jump at any negative claim about a Nigerian woman, and escalate it, so that fellow misogynists could use it to taunt, torment and abuse the entire gender, is worrisome.
She said that it was this sort of mindset that recently led many Nigerian newspapers to publish and celebrate a false story which claimed that Nigerian women were the most unfaithful in the world.
“Sometimes in September, a video went viral on WhatsApp groups, and it was titled: “Nigerian women are the most unfaithful in the world – Durex.
“This video, claimed, with magisterial authority, that Nigerian women are the most promiscuous and unfaithful in the world.
“A quick search on Google also revealed that many reputable newspapers and blogs in Nigeria, at different times, feasted on the story with similar distasteful headlines,” Oladosu said.
She said that as an investigative platform, interested in unearthing the truth, PRNigeria was curious about how and why Nigerian women could be rated the most unfaithful in the world.
She said the fact-checks, carried out, revealed that a Durex survey was misrepresented and mischievously misinterpreted for sensationalism on Nigerian women, by mainstream and online media in the country.
Oladosu said in light of these issues, PRNigeria was demanding that the report be taken down by the media houses that had published them recently, and the ones who did so many years ago. Arts Forum Enlightens Students on Innovative Digital Tools
“We also demand that our media houses should improve their gatekeeping process, to detect false reports and stereotypes.
” Rather than joining the mob, to undeservedly shame women, Nigerian media should spotlight the greatness of the women and celebrate the professionals and business leaders among them, who are making the country proud, both locally and internationally.
“The gender stereotypes are just too much. You don’t have to be a woman; you only need to be a human being to know this is wrong, and it has to stop, “she said
Oladosu called on Nigerian media practitioners to stop the stereotype and stop seeing Nigerian women in all the negativity they can imagine.
She added that the time has come for media stakeholders to start seeing the positivity in women, the brilliancy, the vision, and patriotism, the sense of sacrifice, the doggedness, the can-do spirit and the never-say-die attitude in many of them.
