Australian journalist Paulo Tataro speaks at event at the House of Lords, London London – Monira Matin A leading Australian journalist has spoken out against the declining number of women working in the country’s media, revealing that less women work in the industry than they did 40 years ago. Speaking at the Women and the Media Conference at the House of Lords in London on Thursday, Paulo Tataro, a journalist at the Sydney Morning Herald, revealed that women only make up 30 percent of editorial positions in the Australian media.
Tataro, who joined Australia’s largest newspaper in 1981 as a trainee reporter, pointed out that when she started her career in journalism women made up only 22 percent of the newspaper’s workforce, but 40 years later the figure has remained “relatively unchanged.”
“Just 30 percent of the Australian media today is made up of women. We may have had a technological revolution but we clearly haven’t had a gender revolution,” said Tatoro.
“Looking at the country’s 21 national newspapers, only one has a female editor-in-chief. At CEO level, women represent a miniscule proportion of the senior executives on media organisation,” she said.
Totaro believes the declining trend of women working in the media is down to long-established sexist attitudes in the industry, stopping women from reaching more senior positions. She said that she contacted many of her former female colleagues still working in the industry as well as new trainees at other prominent media organisations to understand the struggles they face.
“The tales I received astonished me. A prominent face on TV, reporter Tracey Spicer, recounted a series of anecdotes that happened in the last few years where an editor told her ‘I want two inches off your hair and two inches off your arse,” she said.
“Another TV executive told a reporter ‘you need to stick your tits out more.’ These examples are just the tip of the iceberg,” said Tataro.
Tatora claims that this scarcity of women in the media is the reason behind the findings of a recent survey, which shows that stories about women make up only 30 percent of all media stories published in Australia today.
“As a colleague of mine recently told me, it’s still news about blokes for blokes,” she said.
Tataro believes the industry needs to do more about sexist attitudes. She told women at the conference to do more to “fight and rebel” against these kinds of “awful working conditions.”
“A part of me feels sad that many talented women have resigned themselves to the status quo, by accepting this kind of sexist treatment. I think women need to more and ‘no I refuse to be treated like this’. “
“At the same time due to the tough economic conditions, many women are finding that it doesn’t pay to rock the boat, which is a really depressing situation.” she said.
However, the journalist does see some hope for women in the industry, saying that some reporters have better opportunities than they would have had 20 years ago.
“One veteran colleague of mine told me she feels things have improved in the past few decades. She said men are less sexist and are much easier to work with than when she started her career 30 years before,” Tatoro concluded.
Meanwhile, veteran British reporter for Elizabeth Hunt, who also spoke at the Women and the Media conference, told Arabstoday that she believes that women in the media have many more opportunities than when started her career in 1968 as studio technician for the BBC.
Named as one of the BBC’s first female foreign correspondents in 1986, Hunt said that during her time at the organisation there were always an equal number of men and women editors.
“Despite the time, I felt the BBC was actively seeking to promote women to senior positions. However, when I became the BBC correspondent for West Africa in 1986, I was one of the first female correspondents in the organisation which at times felt like an act of tokenism,” said Hunt.
In addition, Hunt feels that some of the most prominent and sought after jobs in broadcasting such as reporting the US elections and from war zones are still dominated by men.
“I think over the last 40 years, the number of women covering the most important worldwide events in news such as the US elections and war zones is still relatively low. Many ambitious and talented female reporters are still overlooked and this needs to change,” she added.