How News Organizations Cultivate and Maintain Sexist Newsrooms via Gendered Journalistic Norms, Sexual Harassment, and the Boys’ Club

Abstract

This study used in-depth interviews and focus groups of editors and journalists in Kenya (N = 55) to show how news organizations fail to prioritize gender equality. All participants identified a gendered hierarchy in newsrooms, which participants believed connects to other inequalities such as story assignment, pay, safety, and promotion. Most women participants had experienced sexual harassment at work multiple times. Participants also stated exclusive socialization for men, aka a “boys’ club,” was central to how newsrooms function and advantaged men in terms of building networks, promotions, scoops, work assignments, and increased job security. By linking the various negative outcomes of gendered work environments, this study adds to feminist communication scholarship by showing how organizations reinforce gendered inequalities rather than eliminating them. It also calls on gatekeeping research to focus on meso- and macro-level influences as a necessary shift away from placing responsibility on the individual level alone.

Keywords:

• Gatekeeping
• new organizations
• gendered norms
• sexual harassment
• Kenya
• socialization
• boys’ club

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

Funding received by City, University of London.