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of this medium are guided by the Czech Television Code and Law according to which the medium commits itself to support of diversity and equal participa‑
tion of women and men in its production. Hence, if the medium holds these ideas truly, both female and male redactors should have equal chances of being
assigned to thematically various news topics.The study is anchored in feminist media theories. It also discusses gender aspects of the journalistic profession
and professionalism, media routines, gendered division of news topic and empirical findings of feminist media scholars on news topic assignment among
female and male redactors. Such theoretical framework enables me to analyze the gained data and to compare them with the results of existing studies in
other countries. Empirical part is based on qualitative data obtained in a four-week-long participant observation in a regional newsroom of CzechTelevision.
This research material is supplemented with the series of semi-structured individual interviews containing the experiences of selected male and female
staff working at different positions in the editorial hierarchy. This case study reveals a number of important findings. Editors (men) distributed the topics
according to seemingly gender-neutral routines, but the news topic assignment mostly ended up gender stereotypically with men covering primarily
prestigious hard news, while women covered mostly the soft news. Moreover, editors admitted considering the gender of redactors in the topic assignment
process without making it explicit. Other studies have reached similar results. Specific situations particularly displayed that male redactors have a normative
position and also a professional status at the news desk. When editors prepared a topic for certain person, men unlike women were assigned to various
hard/soft news, as editors expected more diverse journalistic qualities of male redactors. Consequently, they could acquire more experience and actually
become more competent and professional journalists. This finding is significant. Other studies frequently point to the existing notion of men as a norm and
professionals, however, this paper reveals impact of such assumption on the practices of media production.