News agency employs only women

DİYARBAKIR - Anatolia News Agency

The JINHA news agency has 17 employees and all of them are women. AA photo

Only women are employed at the newly-established Jin News Agency (JINHA), based in Diyarbakır. With the slogan “We are writing without considering what men will say,” the agency aims to represent the viewpoint of women in its news.

News editor Hazal Peker said the top levels of the world’s media sector is made up of men. “I have worked for various agencies for many years but men have the last word at all of them. Now we have an agency where women will have the last word.”

The many civil society organizations for women in Diyarbakır prompted them to base the company there, Peker said. “[The high number of women’s organizations] is why Diyarbakır always shows the first reaction to women’s problems. Considering that, we decided to establish the agency in this city.”

Reporters in other cities
She said the agency also has reporters in Istanbul, Ankara, Antalya and other cities, and their first story would investigate which cities women prefer.

The agency’s Kurdish news editor, Hangül Özbek, said women have so far greatly supported the establishment of the news agency.

Peker said the agency employs 17 people and everyone from reporters to the camera operators and from editors to accountants was female, adding the agency was named “Jin,” meaning “woman” in Kurdish. Turkey’s first all-female news agency will soon begin broadcasting in Turkish, Kurdish and English.