The Diversity and Ethics sub-committee does research on, deals with, and keeps tabs on a variety of issues: race and gender balances and imbalances in the newsroom, diversity of news and views, state of the newsroom and job losses which lead to a serious lack of diversity in the media.

The second issue is ethics (related to accountability: who should journalists be accountable to, who will guard the guardian?). Related to this is, for example, the question of professional identity and loyalty to journalism and the Constitution versus party political bias and factional stances. To this end, this committee over the past few years has undertaken major research for example: Should journalists belong to political parties? Another significant research project was conducted in 2017: Is there a Glass Ceiling in the Newsroom? This dealt with perceptions among journalists about sexism in the newsroom. Both these research projects were conducted by Glenda Daniels.

In 2018 Glenda then conducted research on The Glass Ceiling in the Media, at large. This examines obstacles which hinder women’s progress in the media; it also tries to ascertain data on salary disparities among other issues. This project is a collaboration between SANEF and Gender Links and is funded by the Media Development and Diversity Agency (MDDA).

A further project that this committee has embarked on is: The state of job losses, and changes and transitions in journalism. There has been a job loss blood bath in journalism over the past six years; we need to get more information on this state of affairs. Media companies declare they are not making profits and slash the newsroom of staff year after year.

Finally, the sub-committee is playing an important oversight role re: SANEF’s Media Ethics and Credibility Inquiry.

If you are interested in joining this dynamic committee, please contact the committee chair:

Nicki Gules – [email protected]

Or the Office Administrator – [email protected]