Silencing Her Black Voice: the Study of the Working Conditions of Professional Black Women Journalists in South African Newsrooms

They make up 45% of the country?s population, but black women remain the most poorly represented group in the media. Often they are portrayed as victims of gender?based or domestic violence, villains or sex objects. At the same time black women remain the least successful professionals in the media industry. They occupy only 6% of senior managerial positions in the industry. Such representation of women journalists, indeed has an effect on the portrayal of black women by the media. Using the SABC TV newsroom as a case study, in this book I survey, interview and hold a focus group with ten women, myself included, who were either/are employed by the SABC. Five women who represent the different black women news sources are also interviewed. This work answers two questions relating to working conditions and representations of the black women in the newsroom and the news bulletins. The book argues that the marginalisation of black women in the media lives on and therefore suggests a need for these women to form a resistance movement against a patriarchal and racial media. It is thus most useful for researchers of media patterns with regards to black women and feminist/womanist media.