Lack of women in news broadcasting

Karen

Professor of at Northumbria, recently at

European Institute for Gender Equality and Global Media Monitoring, showed that men dominate decision-making positions across many major European media organisations. Northumbria Journalism graduate, Rosie Willan, caught up with Karen to find out more.

Why do you personally believe this gender inequality exists in the broadcast media industry?

The argument most men would put forward – even if they wouldn’t put it forward explicitly – is about merit. I don’t buy that. We have more female students graduating from journalism courses and entering media industries than men, yet all the research shows that the higher up the hierarchy you look, the fewer and fewer women are still working in the industry. It’s impossible to explain why this happens unless there are structures within these organisations that prevent women from progressing to senior positions. That is the reality and that is sexism.

Where does the UK stand compared to other countries on this issue?

Our research analysed women’s occupation of decision-making positions across all the public service broadcasters in the 28 EU Member States as well as in a range of private media organisations: the UK’s performance was somewhere in the middle. However, there wasn’t an enormous variation across the countries sampled and none performed particularly well - the average score for women in senior positions across the board was around 30%.

How does this research inform your teaching at Northumbria?

Being an active researcher necessarily informs your teaching because you can incorporate examples from your own research to animate your lectures and seminars. I can talk authoritatively about new developments in the field because I speak at conferences, meet colleagues and share ideas and research findings. It’s important to present these ideas in a way that students can relate to and being research active also means keeping up-to-date with changes in the media landscape. Using examples from current TV series’ or issues trending on Twitter keeps topics fresh and makes the subject relevant and meaningful.

Northumbria has fantastic facilities for practicing broadcast journalism and our Media courses are accredited by the Broadcast Journalism Training Council (BJTC). What advice would you give to your students, particularly female, who hope to make it in this industry?

I think the key piece of advice to any student is to tell them, ‘you can do it!’. For women, remember that your training is the same as that experienced by the men, that you are at least as good as they are. It’s not an easy call but the only way in which we are going to see real change is by more women – and men – wanting to make that change and that can only happen from the inside.

This article was originally published in Behind the Spin magazine.

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