WANIFRA empowers women in the media

Over 30 female journalists in leadership positions attended this year’s World’s Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WANIFRA) Women In News course last week in Johannesburg.

The gesture is a partnership with the School of Journalism at Wits University in South Africa. Under the arrangement, female journalists in leadership positions and those aspiring to be leaders attended one week training at the beginning of the programme. The second week of the training will be conducted towards the end of the programme.

There are take home assignments and workplace assignments that need to be taken as part of the certification. The course introduces the participants to management principles, finance for finance managers, people management, marketing and advertising, research and new technology, strategic planning and governance.

The theoretical principles are presented in the context of how they apply to the effective management of media organisations. Meanwhile women that attended the first leg of the training were empowered to be bold and resilient in their journalism career.

Co-founder of Jozi FM Kanyi Mkhonza came up with the notion of ‘Own it,’ under which she encouraged women to stamp their authority and to set up their own culture at work. She also taught on Design Team Agreement, under which she questioned the kind of atmosphere that managers want to create in their places of work. Among some of the human resource principles, Mkhonza encouraged leaders to share information and responsibilities, identify potential, coach and mentor talent, reward staff and handle confrontations maturely.

Mail and Guardian founding Editor Anton Harber encouraged women to take risks. “Success stories have an element of failure in them. Admit your mistakes and move on,” he said. Paul Fray, managing director of Fray Intermedia encouraged women to embrace the simple style of writing, saying it is the best. Editor of Moneyweb Holdings Ryk Van Niekerk said newsrooms must have a budget and that managers should only keep the best people.

In an interview with The Midweek Sun, chief Sub-editor of The Star newspaper in Kenya, Wanjiru Kinoti said she had learned that gender is not a standard issue, but rather pervasive. She said that almost every issue in news has a gender dimension. “For instance, transport is a gender issue. The lack of a good, reliable and safe public transport system can restrict women’s movements and activities and hence hamper their contribution to the economy,” she said.

Bureau chief of Mwananchi Communications in Tanzania Sharon Sauva, said she had learned how to manage people. “Before, managing people was a big issue for me because companies always give people positions without any training on people management,” she said.

WANIFRA is a global organisation of the world’s newspapers and news publishers, representing more than 18 000 publications, 15 000 online sites and over 3000 companies in more than 120 countries. It exists to promote media freedom and the economic independence of news media as an essential condition of that freedom.

Women In News works with newspapers and their high potential female employees to overcome the gender gap in management and senior editorial positions.