SECTOR 4 4.8 Equal opportunities regardless of race or ethnicity, social group, gender/sex, religion, disabilities and age are promoted in media houses. Equal opportunities are not promoted to the extent that they should be, and large discrepancies still exist with respect to gender, disability and religion. Very few people with disabilities work in the media sector, and only two could be named during the AMB panel. A panellist noted that the shortage of disabled media practitioners may point to problems at the training level. “If they are not enrolling, it may also be that the schools are not friendly enough for their enrolment.” With regards to gender, males continue to dominate the top ranks of media houses as editors and managers. “The faces of media houses are male.” The important issue of the unfriendliness of media houses for women was raised; “One thing we fail to recognise is that there is a lot of sexual harassment of women in the media, both in-house and by the people they are covering. For women, it’s not easy in the newsroom or on the field,” as such, “there are many women in the newsroom, but they often shift to public relations and advertising.” Most media do not have gender policies on sexual harassment. Training institutions such as the University of Ghana (UG) have affirmative action policies, which have resulted in more women entering the field. At UG, “this academic year, there are nine men in a Masters class of 40 students. But representation in the media is unfair. In terms of ownership, very few women own the media. Women do well as presenters on TV, but very few women’s voices are reflected in the media.” It was pointed out that there is a lack of advocacy in terms of equal opportunity. “The reason that we are not advocating is not visible, but there are so many indirect forms of discrimination, and the media itself is not taking it up.” With respect to religion, “most media houses don’t cover Islam.” “Even in terms of hiring, you won’t find this particular group of people across all media.” With regards to age, “in public radio, things are quite free, with people of all ages taking part.” Panellists lamented, however, that many of the more experienced journalists have moved away from their media houses, or do not focus on tasks considered as less important (e.g. press conferences), which has also compromised the quality of reporting. AFRICAN MEDIA BAROMETER GHANA 2017 71