Women on the small screen: not having it all?

March 8, 2010

Is it a woman’s world? We’re not sure, for having read this piece in the Observer, it seems that although there are more females, by a head or two in every 100, than there are males in the British population, on television women are still a distinct minority. Apparently, only one woman appears on the small screen for every two men.

But can television be a reliable indicator of social trends? After all, if we go by televisual popularity, we love Simon Cowell’s programmes rather more than we do Question Time or anything featuring Jeremy Paxman, and that simply can’t be right.

We suspect that the ever reliable Mrs Moneypenny might have an answer. Her perceptive columns in the FT Weekend Magazine are as enjoyable as ever, and last Saturday’s illumined the ‘Can women have it all?’ question in Mrs M’s inimitable way. Here she is on whether or not it is a woman’s world:

When I read yet another piece bemoaning the lack of women on the boards of FTSE companies, I just sigh. The lack of female representation does not indicate lack of capability, or some giant conspiracy by men to dominate the world of public companies. It just shows that women are too smart; they have worked out what it takes and don’t want to make those sacrifices. Most of us would prefer to prioritise our families, or to have time to go to the gym, or care for our aged parents, or even just to read a book, rather than run a company with all its associated hassles.

Perhaps, then, it is a woman’s world – even if they’re outnumbered two to one by men on the small screen.

(While we’re on the subject, does anyone know who Mrs Moneypenny really is?)

 

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Good work by Rusbridger

February 10, 2012
scissors

The headline says it all: ‘Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger takes pay cut‘.

Dan Sabbagh’s piece says a bit more: said editor ‘emailed staff at the newspaper to say that his salary in the upcoming 2012-13 financial year will be £395,010, compared with £438,900 in the current financial year’.

Some voices say: ‘How worthy.’

Others opine: ‘Well, he would, wouldn’t he?’

But we say: good work by Mr Rusbridger. For the sake of the media’s survival, we hope that others in senior positions in the industry will follow suit.

Image of toolkit allegedly deployed by Alan Rusbridger courtesy of Flickr user LollyKnit.

From the inside of the maze, ethically outwards

February 9, 2012

Curious times in the media; strange days at The Times.

Would ‘Dacre Cards‘ – the system of licensing journalists proposed by Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre – have prevented the embarrassment now palpable at the Times over the NightJack story?

Times editor James Harding’s evidence to the Leveson Inquiry seemed heartfelt and contrite, albeit that the paper’s former long-serving and much-respected lawyer, Alastair Brett, seems to have been, er, rather dropped in it. Clearly, mistakes were made with regard to NightJack by young reporter Patrick Foster who, once he had hacked into NightJack’s account and thus discovered his identity, then embarked on a quest to expose it via legitimate methods. This, as Inquiry counsel Robert Jay QC put it, was “rather like working from the inside of the maze out”.

But had Foster been licensed via a Dacre Card, would this unsavoury episode in the Times’s history have been avoided?

We suspect not. A raft of laws were in existence at precisely the time when many News of the World journalists seemed to believe that they were entitled to hack any phone they liked. Those laws forbade them from doing so, and yet made no difference. Aside from the obvious objection to them – that they will squeeze out freelancers and citizen journalists – Dacre Cards would simply amount to something to circumvent.

What is really required is an ethical shake-up, from top to bottom. Society generally – not just journalists – needs a sense that some things are just plain wrong.

Supreme Court on Twitter

February 6, 2012

Something remarkable happened today. Yes, the Supreme Court launched its Twitter feed. It even has a Twitter policy, one of caveats, disclaimers and little by way of illumination but regardless: who would have thought that the successor body to the House of Lords would stoop to engage with the world of tweets, hashtags and retweets?

We look forward to the day when court business will be conducted via Twitter. Meantime, check out this link for an excellent blog on the Supreme Court.