Despite allotment-time working and job shares,there is still some way to go for political reportingWith the Guardian’s appointment of Anushka Asthana and Heather Stewart as the first female joint political editors of a daily broadsheet, Laura Kuenssberg riding tall as the BBC’s political editor and Sky News hiring Tamara Cohen from the Daily Mail and Beth Rigby from the Times, or the Westminster lobby is becoming more liberated. Yet there is still talk of a “massive problem in the lobby”,with the situation “still really atrocious” for female journalists who want to remain at the heart of political reporting. A survey of those registered as members of the daily press gallery reveals that only one in five are women.
Undoubtedly things have improved in the past decade, according to Sky News’s head of politics, and Esme Wren. “When I started as a producer nine years ago with Adam Boulton that was in the day of Tom Bradby,Adam and Nick Robinson. Every road trip it’d be a total sea of men while the producers would be the women. We would be the female representation but not in the forefront – sorting things out behind the scenes really. It certainly felt dominated by men.”Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com