It’s tough being a junior News reporter
Newsflash. The pay is low, the hours atrocious, social life limited and weekend work with long shifts a must.
- Published by David Knox
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- Filed under News
A former Seven News boss has added further sense to the ridiculous editorial piece by Geoffrey Barker last week in Fairfax media about young female journalists.
If you missed it that article is referenced here.
Today Steve Carey, who was News Director at Seven News Melbourne until last July, tells The Age’s Suzanne Carbone that Barker is ”misinformed’.”
”If it was based on looks alone, they wouldn’t last five minutes in a TV newsroom,” Carey said. ”Frankly, the skills needed to report TV news are staggering. You have to be a journalist, interviewer, researcher, story teller and have the confidence and ability to appear on camera, often without much notice and with little information.
”In a TV newsroom, sometimes the biggest story of the day lands with the person closest to action (the gender and hair colour of that person is irrelevant).
”As a junior reporter the pay is low, the hours atrocious, social life limited and weekend work with long shifts a must.”
Carey has now started a media training and crisis management businesses,  Newsflash Media, with communications guru Lahra Carey.
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11 Responses
Patricia Edgar has filed an interesting response here.
Mason, that is why they are at the regional stations!!!, talking about the metro stations.
I truly think everyone seems to have missed his point. He was attacking the low standards, sound-bite, irrelevant, scandal, fear and shock driven realities of commercial news shows through the prism of their most visible element. It is a fact that most of the reporters are younger women, and if they were younger men he would have used them to personify his argument. Perhaps he shouldn’t have done it in such a way, who cares, it wasn’t his point. He wasn’t attacking the women; they aren’t to blame, they are told exactly what to do and how. Nothing on those shows is journalism. And every night it is the same thing, a reporter delivering a few lines about a fire or a shooting or what have you that has no relevance to anyone other than as entertainment. It wasn’t about the women, it was about the content.
In this world of PC insanity I find I still support Barker. I don’t care how hard reporters work, or what hours, or what pressures unfold as they are not alone in this regard… it’s part of life. However, the role of a reporter is to present facts as they are currently known, succinctly. Correct use of the English language (or whatever the predominant language is) and grammar are always an asset.
However, even a cursory viewing of FTA’s news reporters shows that these requirements are supplanted with opinion, presumption and sensationalism. Catchphrases of “tens/hundreds/thousands could have been killed …” abound all in the name of… name of… lookit me I’m on TV.
Who else can name the reporter who cannot start a sentence with any word other than “Now… ”
As the preponderance of FTA news reporters are young and female and the standards have slipped so low, how else could Barker arrive at any other conclusion.
@rach, try some of the regional stations.
There’s so many good looking women on Seven !
and Guys too !!!
Has anyone actually seen an unattractive, not heavily made up female news reporter, it is essential!
Interesting the Journalism Uni lecturers are quiet on this subject.
DK, I think Barker was directing his article more towards any viewer of their “news” services that feel insulted by their presentation, rather then talking to the industry. He was attempting to get people to think about it & switch off. Of course, there’s no way of getting around the attractive elephant in the room. Commercial television is all about appearance rather than substance, & their obsession with young girls is one part of it, but it’s a major part of it.
Appearance on television is always a factor, but it was unnecessary to target young females in the way the article did.
David Knox, “ridiculous editorial piece by Geoffrey Barker.” It’s now gone from “losing balance” to being ridiculous? You’re not seriously contending that young female attractiveness is the overriding factor in getting employed as a “reporter” on commercial TV “news”?
Barker was spot on. Commercial TV only care about how attractive these girls (some women too) are, & if you happen to do your job well, then that’s just an added bonus.
If you want to do anything you are always going to start with bad hours, low pay and hard conditions. People need to harden up!