Gendered News Reportage?: A Study of The Guardian and The Sun Newspapers, Nigeria

Gender is central to identity since humans are socially positioned as gendered subjects, and or choose to identify with certain genders. This positioning, then, is evident in discourse choices and patterns, as well as attitudes and orientations towards social phenomena. Premised on the gendered differentiation and framing theories, this study examines women reporters’ construction of news stories in two broadsheet mainstream newspapers in Nigeria, The Guardian and The Sun. Data comprise sampled news stories published between 2015 and 2017. Through textual and thematic analysis, the study reveals that it is social issues and institutional ideology or practice norms that predominantly drive female news constructions and reportage. The study concludes that women’s news reporting is, fundamentally, driven by a number of linguistic and structural values and that what counts most in female news reportage is fidelity to the professional code of practice. However, women tend to engage more in the coverage of some news beats that require less use of hard logical arguments. In view of these findings, a similar study might need to be undertaken in the future in relation to the male news reporters to provide framework for comparison