Gagging the voices of reason
- Deryn Graham
New tech and male-dominated cultures push female voices out of the newsroom and throttle the social conversation.
If traditional media in general is under siege from mis- and disinformation, AI-generated slop and Big Tech-owned social media platforms whose algorithms determine what we see and hear, then women media practitioners are bearing the brunt.
According to the 2026 Glass Ceilings book, due out in August, as a consequence of a hostile media environment in South Africa, women journalists are leaving the profession in their numbers. Already under-represented in the sector, women journalists face issues of cyberbullying, misogyny inside and outside the workspace, gender pay gaps, and sexism, making conditions untenable for them.
Since the last Glass Ceiling report published in 2018, there has been a marked decline in the number of women entering the newsroom and there are now fewer women in South African media compared even to 10 years ago, when the space was more equal.
“The influence of the so-called manosphere and an anti-feminist backlash are resulting in a gendered onslaught against women in the South African media,” says µÚÒ»³Ô¹ÏÍø Media Studies Professor Glenda Daniels, editor of Glass Ceilings 2026: Women in South African Media and author of Media Freedom in the Age of AI: now is the time for monsters, scheduled for release by µÚÒ»³Ô¹ÏÍø University Press in the next few months. “Attacks on female journalists are gendered and sexualised, and range from body shaming, doxxing and trolling, to threats of rape and murder, which can spill over into real life.”
Published by the South African National Editors’ Forum (SANEF), the Glass Ceiling book reveals alarming levels of online harassment and cybermisogyny against female journalists.
“Promotion issues and old boy networks, the impact of Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation, in which women are disproportionately targeted, all signal how deeply women lack trust in today’s media environment. In media companies and in online spaces, new exclusions and emotional violence abound,” says Daniels.
Avoiding an exclusively male P.O.V
The erosion of women journalists’ trust in employers to support and defend them against these harms will ultimately result in a depletion of different voices emanating from newsrooms and a skewed media that is male heavy in its points of view. Stories about women leaders that focus on emotion and physical appearance and not their professional capabilities are not uncommon, where the same would never be true of a report about a man. Violence and bigotry occur as a result of normative role expectations and rigid societal gender norms such as that women should not be tough and ambitious, and that are perpetuated by male dominated media.
Editorial decisions that are insensitive to gender balance amplify gender biases rather than seeing stories through a gender transformation lens. Journalists – both male and female – need to ask how a story could be better told including the female voice. Failure to do so further entrenches injustice.
Regaining women’s trust …
How we restore the trust of female journalists in the profession generally and in the workplace specifically requires work on both sides. If a woman is threatened in any way, she needs to report it to her editor, as well as to the police, according to the Standard Operating Procedures that media houses are formulating through SANEF. Daniels emphasises that all media companies should have procedures and protocols in place to manage such incidences, including trauma counselling services. (SANEF, in partnership with the South African Depression and Anxiety Group is offering trauma counselling and workshops to journalists who have been victims of cybermisogyny, bullying, harassment and other harms).
Ultimately, protecting women in the media is to protect the plurality of voices, non-sexism and the integrity of the media itself.
“If women cannot participate fully, freely and safely in the media, we lose the diversity of voices, perspectives and experiences. Ultimately, we weaken the democratic function of the media as a public good as the trust deficit deepens,” says Daniels.
Some good news for South Africa is that thanks to a robust civil society sector, including in the media sector, South Africa recently ranked 21st out of 180 countries in the World Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporters Sans Frontiers. This is testament to the work of organisations including SANEF, Moxii Africa, Quote this Woman, Gender Links and others.
… and public trust
But what about public trust in the media in this world of lies and misinformation, which, Daniels believes, has been made worse by AI? Media Freedom in the Age of AI: now is the time for monsters, speaks to the mistrust that AI has engendered in journalists and media consumers alike. In addition, Big Tech hegemony rules without accountability and proper regulation, allowing the manosphere, full of sexism and cybermisogyny, to gain traction. The book examines the lack of trust that grows exponentially when there is no clear policy around or regulation of Big Tech.
The role of media consumers is to be discerning and to interrogate sources before accepting a story as the truth. The more far-fetched it is and the more times it has been shared, the more likely it is to be fake.
And we can all be taken in.
- Deryn Graham is a freelance writer.
- This article first appeared in CURIOS.TY, a research magazine produced by  and the .
- Read more in the 21st issue, themed #Trust — the invisible glue binding society, science and technology.