As South Africa approaches local government elections, the disengagement of women from the news poses a serious threat to democratic accountability and local governance, says Phathiswa Magopeni, Executive Director of the Press Council of South Africa.  

Magopeni delivered the keynote address at an event titled: When Women Switch Off: News, Accountability and Local Power, which brought together some of the country’s leading journalists and media voices to explore why women are disengaging from news, and what that means for democracy ahead of the 2026 elections.

Other speakers included ⁠Verashni Pillay, editor-in-chief of Explain News – who organised the event – and ⁠Ferial Haffajee, associate editor at Daily Maverick, ⁠Nicki Gules, head of news at News24, and Makhosazana Zwane-Sigwa, former editor of True Love, Drum, and Move! Magazine.

When women’s voices disappear from the information ecosystem, power shifts, accountability weakens, and local democracy loses its most vital watchdogs, said Magopeni. 

Democracy does not collapse overnight. It erodes quietly, often unnoticed, when its foundational pillars begin to weaken. One of the most critical of these pillars is access to credible information. Without it, participation declines and accountability falters. 

Journalism is not merely a profession or industry; it is an institution of democratic accountability, particularly at the level of local government where power is most tangible and most felt.  

“The strength of any democracy rests on three pillars: credible information, informed participation, and informed accountability. Take away the information pillar, and watch participation and accountability collapse,” says Magopeni.  

Local government is where democracy touches everyday life. It determines access to water, sanitation, electricity, healthcare, safety, and transport. Yet, while women make up more than half of South Africa’s population, they account for less than a quarter of the voices heard in political and public affairs. 

This imbalance is not simply a gender issue; it is a democratic one. When women are underrepresented in the news and increasingly disengage from it, democracy itself becomes distorted.  

Research by Gender Links, Media Monitoring Africa (now Moxxi Africa), and the Reuters Digital News Report, reveals a troubling trend: women are less likely than men to engage regularly with news and more likely to avoid it altogether. 

This disengagement is not abstract. For millions of South African women, municipal failures are lived realities, not policy debates. Yet reporting on these failures rarely reflects women’s experiences or perspectives.  

“For millions of South African women, these are not abstract policy debates. They form the daily reality of survival,” says Magopeni.  

Her keynote outlined why this matters so profoundly for democracy: women are primary stakeholders in local governance outcomes. 

In many households, women manage essential services and bear the brunt when systems fail. When water supplies are interrupted, women are the ones who must find alternatives. When clinics are overcrowded, women carry the burden of care. When communities become unsafe, women and girls experience the most immediate consequences. Despite this, political reporting often centres on elite party conflicts rather than the gendered realities of service delivery.  

For journalism, the implication is stark. When reporting fails to show how municipal decisions shape women’s lives, it misses the core substance of local democracy. Ignoring women’s informational needs means ignoring the citizens most affected by local government performance. In doing so, journalism weakens its own watchdog role.  

Accountability depends on two layers of scrutiny, argues Magopeni.  

The first is investigative journalism. The second is citizen engagement - reading, questioning, amplifying, and acting on information. Women are central to this second layer. They are deeply embedded in community organisations, neighbourhood associations, religious networks, and local civic initiatives. When women engage with journalism, they translate information into action. When they disengage, democratic vigilance fades. 

“Democracy cannot function optimally when half the watchdogs are missing. The news media often describes itself as a watchdog of democracy.”  

Two major risks emerge when women disappear from the news agenda. First, political priorities shift. Politicians respond to the audiences who are paying attention, and when women disengage, the issues that affect them risk becoming less visible. 

Second, democracy loses legitimacy. When public discourse does not reflect women’s realities, politics feels distant and irrelevant, accelerating disengagement. Governments, in turn, receive distorted signals about public priorities, creating blind spots in policy responses.  

Civic influence accrues to those who remain engaged. If men dominate the information ecosystem while women withdraw, public discourse, agenda-setting, and political mobilisation tilt further toward male-dominated spaces. Democracy may remain formally inclusive, but it becomes informally defined by those who control narratives and attention. 

Magopeni explains: “In other words, the real contest for power increasingly happens in the information sphere, not just at the ballot. And if women withdraw from that sphere, power quietly consolidates elsewhere.”  

As local government elections approach, it is critical for the media to rethink how it covers politics, she argues. This is not simply a question of volume or frequency, but of approach. 

Journalism must intentionally centre women’s voices, portraying them not only as victims or activists, but as experts, analysts, and leaders. Municipal budgets and service delivery decisions must be treated as gendered realities, not neutral technical processes. Accessible journalism - rooted in language, community, and lived experience - is essential. 

Magopeni concluded her keynote by arguing that if journalism is to uphold its constitutional role, women cannot remain marginal subjects of stories. They must be active participants in the information ecosystem that holds power to account. When women are informed, visible, and engaged, democracy becomes more vigilant, more representative, and more resilient. That is not only a media imperative - it is a democratic one. 

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