The coverage of The 16 Days Campaign in Gauteng media coverage, including e-tv and SABC 3 prime time news, was reasonable good in most aspects. Some improvements could be made in terms of reporting on woman and child abuse.

The 2006 monitoring revealed:

There were more male sources (60%) than female sources (40%) in the items that were monitored;

• SABC 3 had the highest ratio of female to male sources with 60% sources being female. The Weekender, on the other hand, lacked any female sources in stories that related to the Campaign and woman and child abuse;
• At 17% each, the most common roles for sources was that of “Government officials and politicians” and “Civil Society”;
• Where the sex of the journalist was known, 62% of the times the stories were written by female journalists;
• Topics that related to gender-based violence accounted for 36% of all stories monitored. Child abuse stories accounted for 16% of all the stories;
• 16 Days Campaign or campaigns relating gender issues accounted for 13% of the stories;
• The most supported journalistic ethic was “Woman and child abuse are fundamental human rights violations”. The most violated principle was “Minimise harm”;
• 3% of stories made a link between HIV/Aids and woman and child abuse
• 56% of all stories monitored mentioned the 16 Days Campaign

Read the full report here