The uncomfortable truth about covering gender stories in 2025

In Kenya’s newsrooms, gender-related reporting is increasingly wrestling with the tension between visibility and substance. While more stories than ever are being written about women, girls and gender-based issues, a growing body of research suggests the narrative often stops at outlining the problem rather than advancing accountability. As one newsroom insider put it, the coverage tells the story of what happened but too often fails to explore why it happened and who must change.
Recent studies highlight the gap. One comprehensive review of 1,200 stories across Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania found that only about 3 % of media reports on sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) and femicide actually focus on the perpetrators, meaning the actors behind the violence rarely appear in the narrative.
Meanwhile, other analyses show that female voices are still under-represented in headlines and that media coverage of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) remains heavily concentrated in urban centres, limiting visibility of rural and marginalised experiences.
The result: repeated victim-centred framing, but scant attention to justice, broader policy context or structural inequalities.
The implications are serious. When the media emphasises the victim and the event—rather than the root causes and systemic accountability—it can inadvertently reinforce a view of gender violence as isolated incidents rather than a persistent pattern. This narrowing of focus may impede public pressure for legal reforms, under-cut community mobilisation and allow impunity to continue. In a country where gender inequality persists across education, employment and political representation, media framing matters.
Looking ahead, Kenyan media outlets and journalists are being urged to shift their approach. The call is for deeper, data-driven gender reporting, stronger follow-up stories on perpetrators and institutional failures, and greater inclusion of diverse gender experiences beyond the urban-based narrative.
Such a change could raise the quality of storytelling—but more importantly, it could support a more informed public and stronger accountability. The question now is whether Kenya’s newsrooms are ready to embrace that harder kind of journalism—or continue to cover gender as headline fragments rather than systemic truths.