By Kelly Frost
SOMETIMES I get silly and forget about particular features of this society we’re living in.
One of these being its casual misogyny, which must have slipped my mind, however briefly, because I was reminded of its existence via a phone call on Wednesday morning.
This also happened to be one of my final days as a JEP reporter – but more on that later.
The call started out politely enough. An older gentleman wanting to discuss a potential story which he had brought to my attention via an email. I was already drawing up a list of who to contact for comment, and thinking about what legal considerations might come into play.
I was upfront with him in an email about the fact that I had only the remainder of the week to put the story together, but I assured him that I had achieved more in less time.
The conversation quickly turned sour when he not-so-gently told me that he thought it would be better if the story was passed on to someone else, perhaps the editor or a senior journalist (both of whom are male in our newsroom), someone “more established” and “better connected within Jersey”.
Silly me, I thought. It was my fault! My explanation in the email must have seemed curt, for which I apologised. No one finds a story more important than the person offering it – journalists understand that, and we will endeavour to present it in the best way possible.
But the more I tried to convince him that I was capable, the more embarrassed I started to feel. And let’s remember that my colleagues are in earshot while I’m pleading with someone on the phone that I am an established reporter – I promise!
Instead of backing down, he started to explain even more insistently why the story should be handled by someone else. I simply didn’t understand, you see, because someone more senior and established would seek legal advice. At this point, I was losing the will to argue and couldn’t tell him that I received 94% in media law for that portion of my journalism qualification. Besides, that would be bragging and women aren’t supposed to brag. It’s unseemly.
So I simply went quiet as he told me that the story was huge, really quite serious, and that was why someone more senior should deal with it, if I could understand.
And I didn’t bother to tell him that I’m experienced enough in my role to seek input from other reporters in the newsroom if I am unsure about something and would even refer the story to the investigations editor if I felt he was best placed to write it.
It was alright, though, because this man on the phone said he meant no disrespect. He didn’t mean to offend me.
I told him that his comments were, in fact, coming across as a little disrespectful and offensive, to which he seemed surprised.
What I think is most offensive to me is that he didn’t consider his comments offensive. He thought it was totally acceptable to ask the nice young lady reporter to refer the story to her older male editor because he would have the firmer grip to take it under control.
The call ended with him no doubt thinking that nothing was amiss while I felt like an idiot. Who was I to think I could be a reporter?
Go on and fire the criticisms: that my ego is showing because the man didn’t know who I was or what I can write. I couldn’t care less about that, and, besides, he was the one getting in touch with me, so I had assumed that he was familiar with the stories I’ve written on issues of similar complexity. Perhaps he was one individual who shouldn’t be taken as indicative of wider society.
Doubting myself is always my first port of call after these encounters – for who else could be in the wrong but me? Or perhaps it had nothing to do with my age or gender and I am merely reading into things – but I absolutely refuse to believe that my gender and my age were not motivating factors behind his request.
And now here’s the tricky bit, and it’s where the casual misogyny comes in: perhaps even he didn’t know that my gender and age were behind his request to pass on the story.
But it’s in those little turns of phrase that his biases slip out – it’s a “huge” story, needs someone to take “control”, someone more “established”.
Another piece of evidence is the fact that the male colleague who sits next to me, and is of a comparable age and level of experience, never has phone calls like that. We started to discuss situations in which we had felt foolish and undermined. I reeled off a list; he couldn’t think of one. I referred to that time when a press officer (not from government) assured me “it’s not really a story, sweetheart” and thought I would fall for that (or him).
Or that time I interviewed a sportsman who asked what could I possibly know about his sport? How could I possibly be able to interview him?
Or that time when I was one of the only women at a technology press conference and struggled to get a word in, never having felt so intimidated in my life.
I can’t speak for journalists working in the UK, or vouch for whether it’s any different across the Channel, but here we have an epidemic of young women simply not being taken seriously.
Women who are vital parts of this never-productive-enough workforce spending time doubting themselves or worrying about being bossy or too forward, or whether painting her nails for the press conference will give her less credibility.
That same day, I spent five hours listening to States Members discuss how the Social Security Fund should be used – imagine what wiping out casual misogyny could do for our long-term stability?
All I’m asking is for you to let me do my job well. It is really very hard to press government ministers about ferry service contracts when I don’t even have enough confidence to tie my shoelaces.
As mentioned earlier, this has been my final week at the JEP. I am leaving journalism, for now.
I want to clarify that anecdotes like these are not the reason. This is not defeat. All careers have pros and cons – in journalism, with every heart-warming hero there’s a casual misogynist.
And if anything, these anecdotes make it harder to leave: I was unaware halfway through my breakfast that morning that an hour later I’d be spitting “he’ll rue the day!” as I slammed down my desk phone. One thing I will miss is that intense passion one involuntarily gets infected with in a newsroom.
But that passion can be exhausting – draining, even – to the point where the only thing left is that passion itself.
