Journalist's Journal
By Zarina Geloo Posted Jul 1 2007
The letter came in a thick, brown important-looking envelope with stamps marked “urgent,” “confidential” and “court.”
Inside the letter was a lawsuit with my name as the first defendant, and a claim for $500,000.
This encounter a few months ago was my first real confrontation with the tough realities of being the editor of a newspaper in its first two years of being on the stands.
I envisioned time in prison; who would take care of my boys? What are prison conditions like? I heard it was better for women than it was for men. All these things whirled through my mind before I had even read through the letter.
Drawing in a deep breath, I began to read and take courage. By the time I was through with the documents I had a plan – and a defense. I began to get excited.
The lawsuit was over a story in my newspaper, the Guardian Weekly, about the Zambia Air Force commander, Christopher Singogo, one of the most important men in the country. He was accused of sexually abusing his secretary.
We ran the story for a couple of weeks without names. On the day we published his name, he sued. This restricted us from writing anything more on the matter as we were slapped with a claim worth half a million dollars.
The case drew gasps from my media colleagues but not because the newspaper or I was being sued. Everyone said being sued was inevitable. No, the gasps were based around a question of gender. Would I, a female, be able to withstand the pressure of a lawsuit?
I decided not to plead fair comment on a matter of public interest as was expected in instances such as these, I would get sworn affidavits from the accusers and focus on the morality issues.
There were calls for me to change the newspaper’s ownership so that another male editor would be cited on the documents. Then there were calls for me to resign, flee the country and let the newspaper take the fall. Friends and relatives came to me with “helpful” suggestions of how I should deal with the situation. Most of them involved apologizing for having published the stories or allowing others, such as junior male staff, to take the fall.
As I began to get offended and angry at their suggestions, it occurred to me that my colleagues meant well but were speaking from how we Zambians have been socialized about gender differences.
I realized when I set up the newspaper, that the general perception was I would work behind the scenes and write about gender issues, which is my forte admittedly. Most importantly, the perception was that I would hire a male editor to deal with the pressures of libel and defamation.
Our community is still very much patriarchal. Women do not get involved in controversy. They are “ladies” who do not quarrel publicly.
When we began, media professionals, academics and colleagues lauded the newspaper for being the first to be female-owned with a female editor in a decision making role. They praised the paper for its strong stand on gender-based violence and did not object when the paper attacked the police or the government and the lackadaisical manner with which it handled women’s issues. Other newspapers began to send sources to us if the stories they offered had a strong female component, because we were more informed on gender issues.
So it was very painful for me when the same people who had acknowledged our newspaper’s passion and expertise on these matters began to talk about ducking and diving. They thought that as a woman, I should not or could not challenge a powerful man or deal with legal matters.
When I asked my colleagues if a male editor would have received the same advice, the answer was an incredulous “of course not.”
One male colleague put it very plainly to me. Male journalists wanted women in the media, but those women should be like children and “heard not seen.” Society wanted liberated women who would fight for “causes,” not go to court for libel or defamation. Court was for men. It was too tacky, this colleague told me, to have the lawyers cross examine me and endeavor to tear my character to shreds by questioning my morals as a wife and mother and making me recount my entire sexual history.
It’s okay for a man, to have his sexual history brought up, but a woman’s sexual history should never be a matter for public discussion. Although I protested that I had nothing to be ashamed of, he said the fact that details of my personal life might be raised in public was bad enough.
He tried hard to assure me that no one doubted my professional capacity or my tenacity as a journalist. But how could I believe him? He had made it quite clear that a woman could accept some responsibilities of her position but not all. Some of these were still reserved for men.
I forged on and asked the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA), a regional media body, for support in engaging a lawyer and the matter is now in court.
I feel, however, that the real battle is with my colleagues outside the court, who still believe that female editors should not be the face of media. The fight is with those who think women should hide behind their men folk, and that there are some things women cannot or should not be seen doing.
My skin has thickened somewhat in the two years that the newspaper has been running. But still I cannot forget this incident in my career as a woman editor. I had assumed that my male colleagues meant what they said when they called for more women in the newsroom and decision making-positions. I never realized that these calls for representation had conditions.