Sierra Leone’s third female publisher has been recognized for her professionalism

In 2018, a female journalist with eight years of experience in journalism, ventured into establishing a newspaper (FOCUS 24/7), making it the third female-owned registered newspaper in Sierra Leone, after Dr. Sylvia Blyden of Awareness Times and Femi Coker of Women’s Voice Newspaper. The newspaper was established on a stronger foundation aiming at empowering women with a platform where their views and voices could be disseminated.
There are challenges in the media landscape for men, not to mention the survival of women in particular, against the backdrop that the profession is male dominant. Edwina Sia Janga, Publisher of FOCUS 24/7 Newspaper, took the risk of establishing that platform in the face of opposition from male colleagues, advertisers, and the space itself. Perseverance was the watchword, and here she has been recognised for professionalism by the Independent Media Commission (IMC).
The country’s media monitor, the Independent Media Commission (IMC), on Wednesday, May 18th, 2022, recognised and awarded Focus 24/7 Newspaper for “PROFESSIONALISM” in the pursuit of their work. Despite their number in terms of hierarchy, women have broken the ceiling with significant contributions.
This is recognition for women in journalism. This signifies that, though they might be small in their number in the media landscape in Sierra Leone or elsewhere notwithstanding, they can create a whole different if the profession gives them that space by encouraging and assigning more roles to them, so they can break that ceiling completely.
This is a clear manifestation of what Janet Holmes, Louise Burns, Meredith Marra, Maria Stubbe, and Bernadette Vine were thinking in their book “Women in Management Review,” a discourse on women in management in the workplace. The authors were furious at the persistence of discrimination women in particular face in the newsroom. Even when they were not complaining, their male counterparts were of the view that the newsroom is balanced.
Despite breakthroughs such as those made by the publisher of Sierra Leone’s FOCUS 24/7 Newspaper, Edwina Sia Janga, among others, in breaking the media landscape, Holmes et al. argued that there is every reason for a global re-examination of claims that gender is not an issue in the workplace.
That re-think was exactly what was demonstrated by the IMC at an engagement with newspaper editors and station managers across the country, at the Kono Lodge in Freetown, where FOCUS 24/7, a newspaper owned and published by a woman, was singled out with two other male publishers by the IMC Chairman, Dr. Victor Massaquoi, and his commissioners, for demonstrating professionalism in their practice over the years.
Young female journalists across the country were impressed by what they described as the ‘laudable recognition’ of one of them, a demonstration of acceptance and adherence to the ethics and principles of journalism in the country.
Congratulate women in the media. This is your win, and your time to stand for recognition in the media space.
Congratulations to publisher Edwina Sia Janga!
Congratulations to Focus 24/4 Newspaper and its staff!