Special Hearings — Media Hearings — UNKNOWN

NOMAVENDA MATHIANE: Thank you, Commissioner.  I would like to say up front, I joined the profession in 1974, which makes me to come from the same generation as Jon Qwelane and Thami Mazwai.  And I would like to say, I agree with them entirely with what they said this morning.  They told the situation in the news room.	Having said that, I would like to say that although I am representing myself as a working journalist, my submission is based on interviews I conducted with a number of women who have since left the profession, as well as with some who are still practising as journalists.	There are those who want to make out that black female journalists suffered the same fate as their male counterparts. But the truth of the matter is that while we were together in the - while we were together with the black male reporters in the struggle, in the news room, in the union movements, paying the same dues, we were treated differently by white editors and news editors.  And when black men were promoted to senior positions, such as to become editors, nothing much changed.	It is important to state from the outset that black women journalists in the profession, having the same academic qualifications as black male journalists, however, for years editors and news editors relegated black female journalists to fill-up women pages.  	In spite of the network of contacts that the woman would have, high standards of education, she would be hired to report on domestic affairs such as cookery pages, fashion, health, horoscopes, Dear Dolly columns and church businesses.	Interesting enough though, when major stories in these bits broke out, who would be sent to cover that?  Male journalists.  	A woman who went out of the profession said she was sent out to cover a weekend conference on family planning. After all, it is women who have to do family planning not men.	So she had to cover the family planning conference in Pretoria, even when her newspaper had male reporters living in Pretoria, and covering the area.	The irony of this incident was that they both turned up at the same conference in Pretoria and with the Pretoria male journalist. He was able to file his story on Sunday night, while the female journalist was only able to do so on Monday.  Guess what her news editors said and the black man for that matter?  He had the temerity to say to the black woman she had been scooped by her male counterpart.	Women in journalism, women in the newsroom were deliberately kept down. Men were earmarked for promotion, while women's efforts were played down.  Even if a woman had written a good story, she wasn't given credit for it.  And yet, one often found mediocre standard stories pinned on the notice board, with congratulatory remarks from the editors.	Overseas study trips were offered only to black male journalists. Women were able to travel abroad on trips which they themselves had negotiated and organised, and they often had to take paid leave.	When journalists Sophie Tima and Sanzima, the photographer covered the 1976 Soweto student uprisings and took young Hector Petersen, who was injured, to hospital, Tima was not credited for the role she played on that  fateful day. I suspect that her news editor known - had her news editor been aware that a major international story was about to break that morning, he would have sent a male journalist to Soweto instead of Tima.	Sanzima got an award for the photograph, of course pictures always get prominence over news, but Tima, who undoubtedly played a very important role recording the historic event, which, as you all know, impacted on South Africa's history, her newspaper said nothing about her heroic actions.  It did not matter to the newspaper that she was sought out by leading international newspapers for interviews, and that in the later years, based on their views and their knowledge of what Africans go through in the townships, and how unemployment affects every facet of African people's lives, Tima was asked to make submissions to the Wiehahn Commission on Labour Reforms.	Her newspaper continued to ignore her.	Had she been a male reporter her newspaper would have developed her and groomed her for editorship. It would have recognised her strengths which are, her large network of contacts, not only in Soweto, but all over South Africa, that she speaks and writes both in English and in Afrikaans, as well as other major African languages.  Which is more than I can say for some of the editors I know.	There went another journalist because of lack of recognition. She left the profession.	Women journalists say they still find themselves working on articles, starting off with nothing, and when the story becomes big, a male journalist gets assigned to it and women, the woman is told that the story is too big for her to handle.	As part of my research I spoke to Joyce Tsiwani, who told me that while she worked at the Rand Daily Mail, together with Joyce Sikakani, like they were the only ones who would not have typewriters or desks. All the black male reporters, even the stringers on that newspaper, had typewriters. I quote her: "I had to wait until the male reporters had finished using the typewriters and only then could I wrote my story".	She was forced to leave the profession. Fortunately she is doing much more worthwhile work in some NGO, which proves you can't keep a good woman down.	What is the situation today? There are few black women who are holding important positions in the news room. Women magazines have had women editing that, but that is another story.	In most of the newspapers there are no black women in senior positions. Sowetan newspaper has one female occupying a senior position. She is an assistant news editor.  An interview with her reveal that there are no support structures in place for her.  She said to me you are thrown in the deep end to either swim or sink, she said. She says she is thoroughly marginalised and left out of the boys' club. She does not socialise with them after work, and they make sure she is not one of them. She has nobody to run to when there is a crisis.  It is as if she is being set up for failure, she told me.  When her peers in the newsroom were given cellphones, she was excluded, and had to scream and threaten before she got one.	This takes place in black-owned and run newspapers.  	"I am never told anything", she says, "I have had to look for a reporter and told he was away on a study trip overseas", she said.  There are two females, I am told, female editors at the Sowetan and one at City Press who is on a part-time basis, and there is one at Business Report. 	The boys' club does not only exist amongst black journalists.  It extends to politicians who treat women generally differently from the way they treat white male and white female journalists, as well as black male journalists.	If some politicians are hostile to black male journalists, they tend to be worse when they deal with black women journalists.  When you complain about them to our news editors, we are told to be assertive.  When we try to be assertive, we are accused of being aggressive.	There are times when I feel that getting information from our politicians is like trying to get water from a stone.  And yet, I am ever so shocked at how easily available the same politicians are at volunteering information to male journalists, and our male counterparts who can get stories on the golf course from the politicians, and who drink in the same holes with them.  We are not exposed to such venues.	There are black women sub - no, there are no black women subs at the Sunday Times, Business Day, The Star newspapers.  I mention these newspapers because we have heard and still do have black women journalists in their employ. 	However, I must hasten to add that there are white female subs at the above newspapers.  Just as there are white female journalists who are occupying senior positions such as news editors at the same newspapers.  There are those who will argue that being a sub is not a great position to hold.  That there is no power that goes along with it.  I agree, yes, that may be true, but I see subbing as an edit skill to reporting, and the salary scales are higher. There are more skills - the more skills one acquires the more marketable one is. It may not, maybe for some, be seen as upward mobility, but it certainly is better than being stuck on the reporter's desk, even when one feels you no longer fancy being there.	Like our male counterparts, we want recognition for the work we do, for ourselves and for the women who will come after us. It is not enough that the community regards as role models, while the newsroom treats us with disdain.	Before I conclude, I would like to say that I am not actually bitter that my rights were violated and my growth was stunted as a journalist, because it wasn't stunted, instead I blossomed, disregarding whoever may think, but I think I blossomed. But I just think that actually South African newspapers are poorer for not having developed black women and for that it is a shame for South Africa.	What I find even more sad today, is that as I sit here and talk to you, there are no black women journalists in our midst. What should that tell you, South Africans?   Thank you.