Woman Up S3 EXCLUSIVE: Are female journalists underestimated? Barkha Dutt shares her opinion

Barkha Dutt talks about what has changed for female journalists on the recent episode of Woman Up S3 with Pinkvilla.

By Priyakshi Sharma

Updated on Mar 09, 2022 | 01:56 AM IST | 289.8K

Woman Up S3 EXCLUSIVE: Are female journalists underestimated? Barkha Dutt shares her opinion (Image: Barkha Dutt/ Instagram)

At Pinkvilla, we are all about celebrating the beauty and diversity of womanhood in its full glory. As International Women’s Day is here, we talked with several remarkable women from different walks of life, who have, in their own ways, made a difference. Reputed journalist Barkha Dutt was the latest guest on our annual Women’s Day special segment, Woman Up S3. While conversing with her, we asked Dutt if she thinks female journalists are still underestimated. Read on to know what she has to say.

Back in 1999, Barkha Dutt had to fight her way so she could cover the Kargil War from the frontlines. But she was not the first female war journalist. In 1965, Dutt’s mother Prabha Dutt, who was a reputed journalist with a leading news daily, did the very same thing, as she covered the Indo-Pakistan war with a simple notepad and a pen, after being denied permission from the authorities. Although not much had changed in those three decades, we asked Barkha if anything has changed from ’99 to 2022, and if she thinks that female journalists are still underestimated.

To this, Barkha replied, “I think a lot has changed. Women of my mother’s generation and then some of us, we fought and we opened and have enabled, I hope, many more doors to be open for women who come after us. But even now, if you look at management and ownership positions, they are still mostly men. If you look at who runs newsrooms and who owns media organizations, it’s still mostly men. So, there are two aspects to this. One, spaces you are reporting on are often male-dominated. But within news rooms where so much has changed, I do believe that management and ownership positions still remain dominated by men.”