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Welcome to the Future of Journalism, a podcast from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.

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I'm Eduardo's one half of editorial at the institute. How they their Saturday sources featured in our news stories.

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This is a question many news organisations have been grappling with in the last few years.

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As the BBC 50:50 project showed, measuring is often the first step towards an output that truly reflects the audience who aspire to serve.

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But how are these dilemmas being addressed by Nusra Front?

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Global South. Our guest today is our journalists, fellow Nana AMA, Asante Nana AMA is the leader of the Ghana Expert Women Project,

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a new initiative to count the number of women interviewed.

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That's experts and authority figures in this African country.

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Nana AMA is the former co-host of one of the most popular morning radio shows and the creator of the Unfiltered podcast that

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provides Ghanaian women with a platform to participate in national conversations in which their voices are often missing.

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Nana AMA, Welcome back to the Writers Institute and thank you for being with us today.

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Thank you. Do I do? I'm happy to be here. So let's start with the basics.

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I'm very curious about the project, and I know that the project basically came about your time at the institute.

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So what's the kind of expected women project done?

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How did it come about? OK, so let's first start with how the project came about.

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You know, I spent six months on the institute's uncovered extended it.

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And so during the period, I was stuck in the UK and that prolonged to my my stay as a fellow mirror

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connected me with the Department of Journalism at the City University of London.

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They had worked on this project where they had counted the number of women expected to appear in media in the UK.

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And she did this because this is something I had been talking and thinking about, but I had no idea how to proceed.

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And so Mira, who knew that this this had happened sort of put me in touch with Suzanne,

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who is at the City University of London, the journalism department.

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And sort of that started a conversation towards how could this project be replicated in Ghana?

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And then I came back home when I came back home.

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One of the things you think about when you've had about how this project took off in the UK and has become a major success and so they started,

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it was a challenge when they started, but it's become a success that it's something that media outlets look out to to check their performance.

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And so how do you come back to Ghana? The context that Ghana and replicates this?

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You need money to do this, you need to hire monitors to do this.

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And so that thankfully the department had some, some funds and they were willing to share and help me sort of replicate it in Ghana.

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That's how it started. What we did was to design a survey that counted the number of women in media over the five month period hired monitors within

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the counting every week so that we would be able to know how many women actually appear in Ghanaian women in Ghanaian media.

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As experts, you know, not just as and now says, not just as readers,

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not not just as hosts of shows or presenters, but actually women who come because of their expertise.

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And I was going to ask about the start of the project,

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you said that obviously a project like this takes money and you got, you know, some help from City University to do it.

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But what was the main challenge in terms of designing the project and and choosing the the shows that you were going to monitor and so forth?

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You know, I think the the one, if I had done this without the guidance of the team of the journalism department, that would have been hard.

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But because they sort of had the template, it was easy to tweak it to fit my context, which was gone.

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So my the the challenge was deciding on which shows we have so many flagship shows,

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you know, so you have 400 radio stations and got just 100 stations, I learnt.

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So which ones are you going to choose from? First of all, the which television programmes,

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because most other television programmes that were dominant were not shows that fit the the the model that we were going for.

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So the challenge was choosing which outlets, which television programme, which radio programme.

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That was one of our challenges. And then also because some of the programmes, even though they were flagship shows, they were weekly, not daily shows.

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So then how do you monitor those ones? How do you design something to fit that?

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And what were the criteria that you used to actually chose a show instead of another one?

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It was popularity. It was representative. 30.

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What was that? The reasons that you were using when choosing them?

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So what our key factor was what the radio stations themselves describe as the flagship shows or the media

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outlets themselves describe as their flagship shows and were popular in Ghana and were most listened by,

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you know, affect other other indicators available out there.

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So they were their award shows that determine which shows are popular.

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They were people who track which shows are most listened to.

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So we used all of these. We put all of these together to select which shows would be useful for this project.

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I guess sitting well with many listeners are probably thinking or asking themselves is,

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what did you find when you measured the, you know, the contributors and the people interviewed in these programmes?

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You know, going in, you have your assumptions when you're going into any new research.

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And so I had assumed when we were going in that we will find, you know, just fairly high number of women because to my mind,

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even though the when a lot of women's voices in media, you know, we went, we may be around 30 percent.

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That was my assumption when we were going in and I complained about the the the absence of women's voices in media.

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But I thought we were doing really well. It is 2020, 2021, so we were, you know, were making progress and then we finish.

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And what we establish is that only one out of 11 expects there's a woman who I interviewed on radio and television in Ghana is a woman only one.

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And this is a country that has more than 50 percent of the population are women.

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So, you know, to put it in perspective for you.

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Hmm. And it's not only that they were like a much fewer women he saw is also that they got much less time on air.

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Right. And also, yeah, I noticed I read that they were actually treated with less respect.

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I don't know if you can elaborate on that and describe some of the situations that that you found when monitoring.

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So one of the things we found that men were giving more time on, on and on during interviews, male aspects had more time.

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They were treated with more respect. The knowledge was not questioned much as women's knowledge.

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Women experts knowledge were questioned by a host of presenters of these shows, and the women were treated with far less respect.

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And so there were comments about their looks.

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Women who went on TV and there were comments about even on radio people received comments about your looks and comments about.

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Some people had received complaints about their relationships, you know?

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So whereas men do not get any of those questions about So how are you doing with marriage?

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How you doing all of these two things with combining your work with my and things like that?

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Men were not getting some of these questions, but women who went on the shows were getting questions, and sometimes they were just simply cut off.

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In the middle of interviews and.

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What were the women that were actually interviewed in these shows,

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where were they women experts and authorities that that that you found when you

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monitored what you were monitoring the the output of of these TV shows in Ghana?

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So that's that's a really interesting question.

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So there were people who came and spoke for banks, like for their knowledge, in banking, in health, in education.

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It was it was really brought. It was really brought.

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It was just that there were a few other women who were invited to speak, but the areas the people were invited to speak were brought.

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And which were the men, oh, well, men got sick.

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Well, the men got the men guides. It's the same area, except I think the men received more respect.

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So the same areas, just that the more men were invited to save them, they needed to have a conversation about banking in Ghana.

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They were going to invite more men than women. That was the stand that if women were lucky, then one woman would be invited to come and speak.

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Just now presented the national findings of the project, and they are available, by the way, on your website,

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for anyone to check which kind of reaction did you get from Germany's foreign from news

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executives in these in these radio and television stations or from the broader audience?

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What do people think when they saw this? So for women who and activists and feminists who have been talking for years that you know,

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there are no women in in in media women's voices absence for people who have been making these complaints, there was fine line.

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He has the evidence for them. So there where it was, it was, it was a relief for them.

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It was an affirmation of something they had observed. And this was exciting and full of them for the media outlets.

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Well, it was. It was. It was mixed.

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I would say it was mixed. Are people who were like, Well, we know we, we we know, we know that this problem exists.

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But there are reasons why they exist and the people who were like, Actually, we disagree.

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This is not true. We we do.

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We do much better than you are claiming in the survey, even though you know there are shows that had zero women during the period.

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But I had those then producers saying to me, You are wrong.

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We did better than clean. Even though the evidence is otherwise.

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Hmm. And obviously with this project, you've you've been looking into experts and authority figures that are quoted in there in the news media.

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But I wonder if you can walk us through diversity in newsrooms in Ghana,

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not just in terms of gender, but also in terms of socioeconomic status and maybe ethnic background.

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Our newsrooms in Ghana are truly diverse.

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And if they are not, what do you think are the steps you know to take to make, then make them more inclusive amongst the more diverse in the future?

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Hmm. Well, this is a really hard question.

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I'm, you know, on the on the surface would appear that newsrooms are diverse.

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But once you go and you realise that it's such a it's such a journalism because, you know,

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people are over here, underpaid and overworked, you sort of need to come from certain backgrounds to survive.

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First of all, you have to have had and be educated in certain places.

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So you have to go to that either Institute of Journalism or have gone to university.

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First of all, and very few people from lower end of the the economic scale make it to university or are able to go to the journalism school.

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So that means that people from the lower end of the scale do not make it into newsrooms.

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If you come from a really poor background, you're probably not going to make it there.

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Of course, not everybody there. I'm not saying because God knows it's not a rich country.

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We're a poor country. So it's a sin levels, right? So the people there do not come from rich homes.

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But I would say that people from the lowest end of the scale do not make it to the newsrooms.

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And then you, because we come from we got guys made up of different ethnic groups.

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You have to look at which ethnic group is represented and not all the groups are represented.

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You have to think about religion as well. And not all the religious people from the many religious groups are represented in newsrooms.

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And then you have to look at women. And I would say that if you walked into a newsroom, that most newsroom would have a fair, you know,

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fairly high number of women as such today are not people in higher positions

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so that the people at the entry level or mid-level and then at the top level,

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always for some reason, women do not and unable to make it so that top end.

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So if your newsrooms are largely Christian in Ghana and solving Ghana, so when I see solving outlets, I'm dividing Ghana into two.

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I'm thinking of northern and southern Ghana, and southern Ghana is largely Akan.

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And so people from, you know, that are kind of speaking areas are largely represented in newsrooms, which also means they're really Christian.

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You know, so the orientation of the newsroom tends to be Christian or sort of, yeah, tend to be largely Christian, I would say, and not reflective.

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You probably may have two or three Muslims, and that would be it's I don't think I even remember anybody in a newsroom that was

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a practitioner of African indigenous or Ghanaian indigenous religious practises.

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Yeah, there may be people from poor backgrounds or impoverished backgrounds who make it to the newsrooms, but they are not.

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They are not the majority. The people who succeed and thrive are people from, you know, your mother is a teacher, your father is a doctor.

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You're, you know, at least you come from a home where people were educated.

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You are not First-Generation University person in in the newsroom.

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Hmm. So it sounds like like the same dilemmas that you know, news organisations are grappling with in other countries, too.

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And I would like to know about, you know, the next steps for the project.

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You've now shown that 80 89 percent of the experts feature man.

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These guys that I think is 95 percent of the time is given to men in these programmes.

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And they also, you know, treated with more respect, even if sometimes they they have actually less expertise than the women featured.

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So these are really striking figures and striking detail.

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So what would you like to achieve with these data without the kind of things that you would like to to get done?

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You know, after after showing these striking data, you know,

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I had been complaining for a long time about the absence of women in media, and I had never thought about it in the context of women.

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But I always thought that when just women's voices, you know, you go into newsrooms and there are a lot more women,

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but they are not the ones in authority positions and on the radio.

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We are the ones, you know, when the news readers or even giving shows to host the shows, we host the entertainment and relationship shows.

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And so we're not involved in the serious issues.

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And so my my I'm excited that we've been able to do this project that shows clearly that women expect I've sent.

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In national conversations, which for me says that's because all of these conversations goes to shape national policy,

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national law, you know, conflict, how even decisions people make because if you exclude women,

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you're not hearing what the other side think about banking, insurance, human rights and even legal issues.

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You're not hearing all of these perspectives which are necessary in framing

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policy and laws and making decisions about how life should work in this country.

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And actually, this is also not fair, just like 50 percent of the population.

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And we're not that. So I'm I'm happy that this project, we've done this project.

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I hope this is our first round and there will be more rounds that so we can actually check to see if people are making,

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if media outlets are making the changes they said they will make.

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When we went out for interviews after we launched the the the reports,

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we went for all of these interviews where producers and journalists promised they would do better than they have done.

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And so my hope is that this report and this data will keep them in check.

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They will have it at the back of their minds that this is necessary.

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First of all, it's unfair that we're not represented and it's necessary because women's voices and perspective on issues matter.

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So that's my hope for the president. I hope, I hope that media outlet journalists, producers, presenters take this further.

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So this is not one of those things where a report is launched and we do all the interviews and everybody says the right things.

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And then, you know, we go back to our old ways. I hope this is a move towards change.

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You know, this triggers a move towards change for all of us.

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Hmm. And I was wondering, I mean, in terms of, you know, impact and in terms of change,

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what are the things that you think are needed to, you know, to feature more experienced, more female experts on Ghana's media?

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Is it a question of of the media or is it also a structural question as it happens in some countries where you know,

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people in charge are usually men still men and they are more feature?

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Is that? I mean,

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how much of the blame would you put on there on the news media and how much of the blame on on the structural inequalities in Ghanaian society?

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I would say probably 50 50, 50 50.

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I would say I will put half the blame on media. I will put half the blame on society.

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Let me start with media. So after we did the report and I found out that nearly 90 percent like women are,

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you know, nearly 90 percent of experts in radio and television are men.

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I decided I needed to understand why aren't women showing up for these interviews?

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Because I had spoken to producers and journalists who said to me, Look, we try to find women.

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We just can't find them when we call them. They have one excuse after the other.

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And I know professional women. I know women look.

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Ghanaian women have surpassed men and gets an education in Ghana.

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So I found it's really strange that we were not showing up for an interview.

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So I decided, how about I go and interview professional women and ask why they don't do interviews,

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speak to those who actually go on shows and ask what they experience have been?

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Maybe this will shed some light on what is happening and why producers can't seem to find women.

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And what I found was that look, women, because culturally you women are the ones that run to home in Ghana and we live in a in a city.

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Most radio stations, especially the popular ones, are located in the cockpit, so it's hard to get from one end to the other.

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And so women who are telling me, Look, if you call me at seven p.m. and ask me to come on this show the next morning at 7:00

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a.m. when I have a family children to take care of a job to do and one they will,

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I won't be able to make kids. That's not going to work.

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If you want to do a phone interview, I may be able to do that, but you have to give me time to prepare and produce.

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You know, once that because, you know, in the newsrooms, everything goes very fast, right?

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So there is that no women who said to me,

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I have been on shows where I have been so disrespected or I have been to the shows that the men where men have looking over me.

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And, you know, I realise that the presenters on this show are far more interested in the arguments of the men,

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which are no reason at all than my reason documents.

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And so my wife's dress myself, you know, why bother?

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You know, if they're just going to pitch me against a man and listen to the man and not even consider my arguments so I will not go?

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So that's the structure, the design of the programmes themselves. You know, you have programmes to.

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Ranking programmes, that's that's a nine p.m. That's when people are going home, and if women have children,

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they have to tend to these children and you want the women in the studio that's going to be hard for them to come to the studio.

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So there is that and there is also there are there are women I spoke to said, I don't want trouble.

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I don't want people to be calling my husband or, you know, my loved ones to complain about my views.

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Because for some reason, no matter what you say, whether you go on radio, you say Jesus is love or women are great.

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It seems radical because you're on radio and people gets people's parents and loved ones get calls all the time.

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You know, it's sort of raining a woman and some married women do not want to put themselves out there,

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and women who are not married do not want to be presented as radical.

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And so they don't go. And that's because the culture itself is conservative. There are certain expectations of women.

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And so if we're going to move forward, then everybody is going to have to make changes.

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So our society is going to have to realise that for us to progress, women have to speak and engage actively in the political and the media space.

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And speaking of participating in media conversations is a start.

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And then for other radio and television and media outlets just to consider the design of the programmes.

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You know, the COVID has taught us that we can have Zoom conversations advised to you.

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And I I mean, New York, you're in London. We're having this conversation.

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It's possible, you know, people do not have to be physically present in the studios for conversations to be had, for it to be interesting or engaging.

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And so for me, I think there is the outlets have to consider the design, the way it treats women when they appear on these shows, so you can change.

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But the format of these shows so include more women.

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But if they show up and they're not treated with respect, if you allow men to talk over them more,

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if you sort of dismiss them live on the radio or in the middle of an interview, it's not going to come back.

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So both sides are to make changes. I'm not placing all the blame on on a media outlet, but also we women have to sort of take certain steps,

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recognise that we're present and we have to play a role. Hmm.

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There are so many nuances that you just described in those interviews,

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so he's not just the survey data or the, you know, the monitoring that you read,

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but also the nuance of these interviews that reveal, you know, real reasons for women not to be not to be featured on the Ghanaian media.

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Finally, I would like to know, you know, what would be your advice to journalists who may be listening right now,

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who live in other countries that are not in Europe or the U.S., and they would like to replicate something similar to this project and try to monitor,

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you know, which kind of gender breakdown in experts feature authority voices.

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Any advice, any tips that may be useful for them in terms of trying to trying to replicate your success?

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I would say, you know, keep your monitors in check if you want solid data.

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Please keep your monitors in check because you know, you asked me about challenges.

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Earlier, Eduardo and I forgot to mention that that was one of my, you know, so you don't have false starts.

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You know, you hire people and they promise to do everything.

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And then you need that on the evening that you need to receive the data you you start calling and they don't pick up.

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So I would say that's number one.

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Also, pay attention yourself because so, you know, if somebody is fudging the data, I would say, pay attention yourself.

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Hmm. Just the last question, I mean, the applications for the fellowships are approaching for the fellowship.

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Here are the asteroids. It seems clear that you've been a fellow with us at the are fellow.

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And I wonder, I mean, what would your advice for people who are considering applying?

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What did you learn while you were here with us at Oxford?

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Even if that, you know, with that difficult conditions that we got from COVID and from the pandemic?

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What do you think people can expect when they apply to the Journalism Fellowship here at the institute?

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Oh my God, what did I learn? Do you have another hour? Day?

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Look, I will not. I will never stop saying this.

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I I came to Oxford basically depressed about, you know, my job as a journalist because I thought, God, nothing moves, nothing changes.

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And you know, I was in Ghana. I saw my problems were unique, you know, and intractable.

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And there are no solutions to this.

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And then I got to Oxford and I met all these amazing, incredible, brilliant people with different perspectives who sort of have similar challenges.

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Look, they may not be the same, so the corruption may differ, but corruption is happening.

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The the gender issues may be different, but they were present.

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And so that a lot just being in conversation with the other fellows, the prospects reshaped mine and offered me tools to take back to Ghana.

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So I have to then move in addressing some of the issues I saw.

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So my perspectives on democracy, gender, human rights, technological information and information,

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all of that were transformed because of our conversations together,

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you know, with Mira and Rasmus and all the other people who were invited to come and talk to us.

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And also, when you work in mainstream media in a context like mine, Ghana is not, you know, middle.

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We are middle income country on paper, but where are? And so it's impossible for you to independently do something.

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But then I come and I meet jackals organisations doing the black box theatre that's so innovative.

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That's something that, oh god, that's something that an outlet can do.

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And it doesn't have to be one outlets in Ghana.

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You can sort of pitch it to other people that I speak to Kahit about Japan, how stories I find and how to make sure that you know,

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you can do it inside for long form pieces that people will be interested in.

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It was it, I would say. By all means apply.

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You have to sell yourself when you apply, but it's a chance for me to have fellowship.

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It's not, you know, it may not come in the form of rigid class structure, but you know,

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all the people who come to speak to us in during the period that we are in Oxford bring with them knowledge that will shop in what,

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you know, open your eyes to things you didn't see in your own context.

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So there were things I didn't know I didn't even realise were present in Ghana until we started having those conversations.

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I remember when they brought I forget his name, but the BBC guy, the 50 50, the passenger was Ross Hoskins, Ross Ross Hopkins.

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Yeah, Ross Atkins. I'm so sorry, Ross.

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So when when Ross Atkins came to speak to us, I had been whining and complaining about there are no women's voices in me that our new women's voices.

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And I thought it required so much to do it. But then he came, and after his presentation, I was, Oh, that's illuminating.

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Like, I, you know, it's sort of opened my eyes to ways in which I could do that in my context and a dare require so much,

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and I could actually find allies to help me do this, you know, so I would say, please apply.

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It's it's out. It's a life.

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Or I would say a journalism rich, an experience and also a life and rich and experience because so many people I met have become friends.

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I meet Zoe this Sunday to have a conversation about work and life.

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So yeah, by all means, please apply for the writers fellowship.

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It's a I have an abundant journalism because of the time I spent there, and it was such a pleasure to host you here in August for Nana AMA.

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Thank you for joining us today. It's been a great conversation. You're welcome.

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You're welcome. I enjoyed this. I really enjoyed this.

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So our guest today again is Howard told his fellow Amma Asante Nana AMA is the leader of the Ghana Expert Women Project,

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a new initiative to count the number of women interviewed as experts and authority figures in this African country.

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Make sure to follow our podcast channel on Spotify or Apple Podcasts so you don't miss the next episode.

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And if you don't want to miss any news from the institute.

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Subscribe to our weekly newsletter by clicking on the link or on our Twitter bio or the link on our homepage.

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Thank you for listening to the future of journalism. I'm Eduardo.

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Suarez will be back soon.