Bimbola Ayesola is a woman journalist working at The Sun Publishing Ltd, a
Bimbola Ayesola is a woman journalist working at The Sun Publishing Ltd, a print media of Lagos, in Nigeria. She has attended the Highway Africa conference, taking place in Grahamstown, South Africa from September 11 to 15 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 radio in Nigeria than in print media. Some of the reasons she gave for this 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 the internet, you have to come earlier to 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 very limited access to ICTs. There have been ICT 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 http://www.sunnewsonline.com
Sun News Online – Lagos, Nigeria