SECTOR 4

Sexual harassment in newsrooms is very prevalent in South Africa and highly
problematic, yet most media houses do not seem to have sexual harassment
policies in place.
“Editors have a lot of power and generally these power relations are so strong
that it makes having conversations about this issue impossible. Young women
especially are objectified and not taken seriously. Safety for journalists is not just
about ‘out there’ but is also within.”
A survey was conducted by Hacks/Hackers Cape Town, an organisation that
“works to imbed a culture of data journalism in South Africa’s newsrooms, by
encouraging collaborations on data projects between journalists (‘hacks’) and
techies (‘hackers’)”.Conducted in May 2013, it was the first survey of its kind
and was anonymous. The sample size was only 196 employees of the print and
broadcast media, including editors, journalists and sub-editors, so it is clearly not
representative of the entire industry, but it does provide a certain benchmark from
which to move forward.36
One of the highlights of the survey’s findings was that there was no major
discrimination in terms of salary as far as gender and race was concerned. The
discrimination came after the first 10 years when journalists with 10-20 years of
experience were earning more online than in print. Purely print journalists with
more than 20 years’ experience were earning less than the average of the survey.
Generally from the first to the second year, one’s salary would double, and then
triple by the third year. These increments would slow down thereafter to about
R1000 per year worked.
The average male salary was R26, 906, while there average female salary was R23,
821, although there were several women who earned way above the average.
The survey showed that whites were more likely to be editors, while blacks were
more likely to be journalists.

Scores:
Individual scores:
1

Country does not meet indicator

2

Country meets only a few aspects of indicator

3

Country meets some aspects of indicator

4

Country meets most aspects of indicator

5

Country meets all aspects of the indicator

Average score:
36 Available at: http://salarysurvey.hackshackers.co.za/.

64

AFRICAN MEDIA BAROMETER SOUTH AFRICA 2013

2.8 (2010: 2.9; 2008: n/a; 2006: n/a)

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