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Farai Dauramanzi Herald Reporter
Zimpapers’ leading publication The Herald has been selected to pioneer gender tracking tool in Zimbabwe by the Women in News.

The gender tracking tool is a practical gender balance guide for the media, which uses a simple framework to explain the meaning of gender-balanced content.

At the moment the Gender Tracker focuses on two categories which include the prominence of women in news and the inclusion of women’s voices and opinions. In the future, WAN-IFRA plans to expand the categories so that it also includes the portrayal of women in news coverage and prominence given to their stories.

According to Women in News, for content to be gender-balanced, women and men must have equal prominence, equal voices and opinions, equal portrayals as well as have content that appeals to both.

In an interview, Herald Editor Mr Hatred Zenenga said that the selection of the leading media house to pioneer in the use of the Gender Tracker comes at an opportune time as the publication is on an aggressive drive to promote gender balance in news coverage.

“Herald was offered by WAN-IFRA’s Women in News an opportunity to pioneer their tool that measures gender balance in content.

“We are happy to say that the tool falls into our day to day work, where we strive for gender equality in all our stories,” said Mr Zenenga.

Women in News is a WAN-IFRA programme with a mission to increase women’s leadership and voices in the news. It is supported by Sida.