How dare you decide the worthiness of my news story?
When I was driving to work the other day I finally made the decision to take advantage of my 45-minute commute by turning on a podcast series I’ve had recommended to me on countless occasions. It’s called Shameless, heard of it? It’s hosted by two female Aussie journos who decided to quit their day jobs at the nation’s largest independent women’s media group Mamamia to pursue entrepreneurship and freelancing. As a result, they switched their attention to what has become a greatly successful and recognised podcast dedicated to a very important cause.
So it makes sense that at 7:30am that foggy Wednesday morning they uttered something that caught my attention. Ultimately, they posed the question: why are journalists who cover shows like ‘Married at First Sight’ supposedly less intellectual than those who report on sport? There are many underlying issues that sit with this question, but it just so happens that mostly women report on reality tv and mostly men report on sport.
I’m sure this isn’t news to you, but until it is resolved we must continue asking ourselves why and how come? Both topics are considered popular culture so both can be critiqued without ridicule, don’t you think? Like many gender inequality issues, history reveals all…
Linda Steiner tells us in The Journal of Gender and Journalism that in media beginnings a female journalist’s role was to write with ‘a woman’s touch’: about women, for women. In the newsroom many women were frustrated that the men they worked beside and under refused to take them seriously. Were these men implying that women ‘naturally’ lacked the ‘nose for news’? It would seem so.
Yes, this reality has improved in recent decades as Angela McRobbie expresses in Post-Feminism and Popular Culture, the large majority of young women are now ‘dis-embedded’ from communities where gender roles are fixed. However, still in 2013 The Atlantic found the need and urge to post an article titled ‘21 examples of ‘serious journalism’ from women’s magazines and websites’, seeking to place the spotlight on the issue, saying “Guess it all depends on who’s deciding what’s serious.” That’s just the thing! Anything, everything and everybody deserves to be taken seriously.
In 2018, Bloomberg news reporter Ben Bartenstein posted a 12-tweet thread that went viral. Long-story-short, he shared that an abysmal 13 percent of the sources he quoted in 2017 were women. He admitted his disappointment and urged people to pay better attention to gender and diversity in the news.
A quick fast-forward to present day and there still remains the subtle, swept-under-the-rug torment that Michelle Andrews and Zara McDonald of Shameless speak on and pride themselves on banishing. The punch line of their podcast is:
‘smart women who like dumb stuff.’
What an incredible message to portray, especially to impressionable young women scared to take up certain areas of journalism. On the outset of creating Shameless they had two aims: make content for a young female demographic they felt was being overlooked by mainstream media, and intelligently explore celebrity influence and pop culture in an accessible way. Even after listening to that one episode this strategy is so clear.
As someone who has an interest in journalism and the media industry, witnessing continual negativity makes me nervous and afraid to pursue my true urges. But hearing the Shameless girls talk with such incredible and articulate language about commonly ‘taboo’ topics is so refreshing and helps me to become excited about my future. Who’s to say we can’t approach more soft news stories in a way that makes us feel intelligent?
It is comforting to know that UNESCO placed this issue of gender equality in journalism on the forefront of their focus in 2013. But, being a world-wide organisation with countless critical agendas it is difficult to see clear initiatives and results come into play. Therefore, I believe we need more organisations and influential individuals making differences closer to the root.
But the Shameless team of two can’t do it on their own! We need to make sure there is a strong commitment from management to ensure men are also getting involved in the topics women are preaching. We need to continue to include news for women and about women, and give influential women in taboo media sectors larger platforms to share their true passion and intellect.
