In this week’s column, news values submerged, women in the media, returns and axings, and the very nutritious green sludge on the Torrens.

Women in the media: the more things change

The SA chapter of Women in Media had its launch this week, and while it was a well-attended and celebratory night, it also highlighted some ongoing problems.

Veteran Adelaide journalist Samela Harris set the context, eliciting audible gasps from the more than 100 attendees at the Kerry Packer Gallery at the Hawke Centre with her tales of years past in The Advertiser’s newsroom.

“Once upon a time women in journalism specialised in writing social pages. Can you imagine how stultifyingly inane this was?

“That’s when I entered the game. Women worked in glassed enclosures ringing society matrons and asking what they were wearing to parties, for heaven’s sake. Other women who wanted to be journalists were employed as copytakers. They wore headsets and sat at typewriters behind another set of glass screens. One woman was outside the glass. She had made it. She was allowed to write the TV programs.

“Oh how those women glowered through the glass at me when I was given a desk out there on the news floor with all the men.

“The editor, who had employed me out of university on the On Dit scholarship, just assumed that I was going to be male. He was gobsmacked to find that I was not. He told me that if I didn’t work out, there would be no more.

“It was the 60s days of mini skirts and the editor didn’t care how short they were, so long as women wore skirts. The day I turned up in a chic new slack suit, he sent me home to change. I came back in the shortest mini skirt I had, and they were very short in those days. He approved. Women wore skirts.

“It’s not this bad now – I haven’t worn a skirt in decades … but grand advances of the fighting feminist years have slipped and modern media women have new issues to confront.”

Guest Tracey Spicer took up the theme, noting that women in the media had come a long way – but not far enough.

“Figures released by the WGEA (Workplace Gender Equity Agency) yesterday tell a sorrier tale: The base gender pay gap in our industry sector is 21.1% and, if you take into account total remuneration, it’s 25.4%.

“This is the highest it’s been since records have been kept.

“Another recent survey, of more than 500 female journalists across all media, found sexism and sexual harassment to be systemic, with 57 per cent of female journalists experiencing some form of sexual harassment, up from 51 per cent almost two decades ago.”

To illustrate her point, Spicer recalled a former boss pinching her on the bum on the same day that the newsroom had undertaken compliance training. Staggering.

The keynote address was from Walkley Award winning business journalist Adele Ferguson, who talked in depth about her book on Gina Rinehart, and noted how colleagues can get the softer news stories to cover when they return from maternity leave.

Women in Media’s next guest will be Anne Summers in May, with Annabel Crabb booked in for later in the year. In between there will be networking drinks, workshops and panel discussions on issues that women raised at the launch.

The group has launched a mentoring program for young women in the media. The mentors are Carole Whitelock, Samela Harris, Rebecca Morse, Tory Shepherd and Michelle Prak.

Women in Media is a mentoring and networking initiative of the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance. It  is open to women working in all areas of the media, from journalism to PR and corporate affairs.

Sub standards

News Corp’s The Advertiser must figure that no-one in Adelaide reads their company’s broadsheet, The Australian.

They splashed today with a story by national defence writer Ian McPhedran, who was flown to Sweden by giant manufacturing company SAAB.

McPhedran’s story, as well as being rather good PR for SAAB, has some potentially good news for us – that SAAB, if it wins the Government’s submarine contract, would be happy to build the submarines here in Adelaide or even buy out ASC.

Almost exactly the same story was reported on page four of The Oz yesterday by Brendan Nicholson, who also travelled to Sweden on SAAB’s coin. We referenced the SAAB overtures in our report on ASC 24 hours ago.

To make matters worse, Prime Minister Tony Abbott today ruled out buying Swedish subs, making the trip and the story redundant. It’s all a bit odd.

Lateline finally returns in new slot

The long summer holiday for ABC current affairs program Lateline is nearing its end.

The ABC has announced that Lateline will return to air on Monday, March 9, in a new timeslot and on a new channel.

The evening news fix will be broadcast on ABC News 24 at the earlier time of 9:30pm AEDT and again on ABC TV at 10:30pm (local time).

The ABC is promising more depth, including devoting more time to longer investigative reports.

Not so delicious

The excellent SBS food magazine, Feast, has been given the chop after four years.

The mag, in my view one of Australia’s best recipe-based food publications, had been published for SBS by Pacific Magazines.

Its demise is familiar – circulation dropped more than 12 per cent over six months, meaning it was no longer commercially sustainable.

The final edition is on sale on March 2.

Naughty corner

It was a relatively quiet news week which often means the occasional outbreak of media “over-reach”.

This week, much of the Adelaide media (and even the Liberal Opposition), were taken in by an appearance of green “slime” on the Torrens.

This led The Advertiser to publish an opinion that the Torrens’ environmental problems were hopeless and maybe we should just concrete the whole thing.

The Adelaide City Council immediately pointed out that the aquatic plant was actually harmless duckweed.  The NRM board also pointed out that the duckweed would dissipate quickly (which it is doing), rather than hang around and get worse (which the Tiser supposed would happen).

Duckweed is actually an amazing, fast-growing plant. It is an excellent food source that contains more protein than soya beans.

Yes, you can eat it (although I doubt whether harvesting direct from the Torrens is a healthy choice).

It also helps prevent the growth of toxic algae by removing excess nutrients from the water.

Top of the class

This week we look across the other side of the world, where journalist Peter Oborne has courageously revealed one of journalism’s dirtier secrets.

Oborne has written a long article explaining his resignation as chief political commentator for Britain’s Telegraph newspaper.

His reasoning was that the once irreproachable coverage of the Telegraph had become captive to one of its chief commercial supporters – HSBC.

You can read the full details of his concerns here.

Given the massive commercial pressures bearing down on news organisations everywhere, you would be foolish not to suspect that the walls that once separated advertising and editorial departments are crumbling in Australia as well.

As Oborne writes:

“It is not only the Telegraph that is at fault here. The past few years have seen the rise of shadowy executives who determine what truths can and what truths can’t be conveyed across the mainstream media. The criminality of News International newspapers during the phone hacking years was a particularly grotesque example of this wholly malign phenomenon. All the newspaper groups, bar the magnificent exception of the Guardian, maintained a culture of omerta around phone-hacking, even if (like the Telegraph) they had not themselves been involved.”

Media Week is published on Fridays.