'Women Journalists Pakistan' formed

To provide a platform to the women journalists working in print media, electronic media and radio the female journalists have formed an association ‘Women Journalists Pakistan’ (WJP) to address their problems and provide women journalists with special incentives to retain them in journalism.

In this regard a ceremony was held at the National Press Club on Saturday wherein female journalists from different media organizations registered themselves with the association and got advice from senior journalists.

As a first step, women journalists, after a couple of consultative and interactive meetings have decided to form a group that would address the above mentioned problems of those working in this field. These meetings and debates have led to the formation of Women Journalists Pakistan which is a non-political and intellectual based forum that aims to provide a platform to the women journalists working in print media, electronic media and radio.

It was discussed that in addition to raising collective voice for issues faced by women journalists, the forum would initially focus on two basic aspects, ie the networking and direct interaction of women journalists with the opportunities. Since women journalists are a relatively new breed when it comes to the media scene in Pakistan, they have less or sometimes equal to none interaction with the opportunities.

They said WJP aims to end the role of middleman by connecting women journalists directly to the opportunities so that they can be benefit from various opportunities on the basis of their capabilities not as a result of some “favour”.

The members of WJP believed the efforts have to be made to ensure that women journalists are treated as equals rather than sidekicks, gofers, representative, showpieces or trophies. They have enormous potential to become productive and influential players in the media sector and steps should be taken to ensure this happen. Indeed, it is imperative for this to take place after all they represent the larger portion of our population.

In this regard the two objectives of WJP ie networking and interaction are believed to open new avenues of opportunities for women journalists. It will help in building strong networks of women journalists within the city, within the country and also with international journalists that would ultimately help them in getting valuable knowledge from each other’s experiences and exposures.

The second objective is the interaction with opportunities. The WJP will mention data of women journalists working in the field and will provide all basic information regarding women journalists to the various organizations, agencies and networks that are interested to do something for their exposure and capacity building. Moreover it would also update women journalists about all the latest opportunities that they can avail.