Lucy Keaveney: The Voices of Women – Still Missing in 2014

Published: Thursday, January 29, 2015

In her recent Irish Times Opinion column, Una Mullally pointed out that “Anyone familiar with Marconi House on Digges Lane in Dublin, which houses Newstalk, TodayFM and TXFM, will notice that one of its design features is an actual glass ceiling – perhaps a message to women looking to get on air”. In the article Una focussed on the dominance of men in presentation across the three national stations (RTE, Newstalk and Today FM) concluding that “There are basically no opinionated – not to mention even vaguely adversarial women presenting primetime weekday shows” (8 September 2014).

The first Missing Voices survey, monitoring female expertise on panels, was carried out in 2010 and has been followed up with similar surveys in 2012, 2013 and more recently in October 2014. The table with the results of the four surveys is set out below.

Media Results 2010-2014

As is evident from the surveys, programmes on RTÉ Radio 1 such as Today with Sean O’Rourke, News at One, Drivetime, Late Debate and Marian Finucane have increased their representation of women. This is welcome and indicates progress in the quest for gender balance on the airwaves from that station. RTÉ deserve some credit for this improvement, but there is still a long way to go to achieve fairness, impartiality and accountability (NWCI submission to the BAI).

However two new programmes were added to the monitoring schedule for this latest survey and the figures for both are disappointing. Sunday’s This Week had a very low 12 % female participation and on Sunday 12 October it had an all male line up, with two male presenters and six male guests. Saturday with Brian Dowling fared little better with a female representation of just 17%.

Today FM’s The Last Word increased from 14% in 2010 to 28% in 2014 and this is also welcome. Hopefully this trend of including female expertise will continue and will be adopted across the Irish media.

However, there is little evidence of progress in addressing gender balance at Newstalk. The Pat Kenny Show slipped from 35% to 17% while The Right Hook dropped by 15% to 5%. The only programme to improve is Newstalk Breakfast. Nonetheless, the laddish banter engaged in by the male presenters on this programme can be silly and at times borders on the unprofessional.

Common to all three stations is the vast amount of time allotted to sport which is dealt with largely from a male perspective. Frequently there are interviews with players/managers and, although not included in the survey, help to further inflate the dominance of men in the current affairs programmes monitored. Women are currently excelling in many sports e.g. rugby, boxing, GAA, camogie etc. but their successes are largely ignored in both print media, on radio and TV. TG4 is the only exception to this and is to be commended for its promotion of women’s sports.

In an article which appeared in The Guardian (26 October 2014) Jane Martinson wrote:

“Study after study shows that when news and current affairs producers want to get an expert to speak they are far more likely to find a man to do so. In the content analysis done by WiJ (Women in Journalism), men make up 84% of all those quoted as experts. Women, on the other hand, were much more likely to be victims of either crime or circumstances.”

This pattern also emerged through our analysis. Female voices are frequently heard reading scripted items (e.g. news, weather, AA Roadwatch). They are also more likely to be heard on topics such as health, education, caring, cookery, etc. perpetuating the female stereotype of a follower, nurturer, or in some cases, a victim. For instance, during the recent survey, 44% of the women who featured on Newstalk Breakfast, The Pat Kenny Show and 50% on Lunchtime, were interviewed as victims of circumstances.

Zoe Williams wrote in the Guardian that:

“Male presenters on current affairs programmes go first to the man and interrupt the woman constantly, which broadcasts the view that men are more important and that you can always guess what a woman is going to say” (28 October 2014)

During our survey we heard this frequently. Many of the current affairs programmes surveyed allowed men talk over and interrupt women as they gave their opinions thus lessening the female panellist’s input and undermining their credibility. Both panellists and presenters are guilty of this, indicating a lack of training in basic skills. Guidelines for presenters and panellists would improve the quality of radio.

Public service broadcasting is not served by the narrow pool of Dublin journalists, economists, lobbyists and PR people who are invited on to panels in all stations. As an example we refer to Rónán Lynch’s article from the Village magazine issue of July/August 2014 when he wrote about the competition between the three paper review programmes on Sunday mornings on RTÉ, Newstalk, and Today FM.

“They all follow similar formats and it’s not unknown for guests to appear first in one show and then on another on the same morning.”

In the article he breaks down the professions represented in the panels over the course of one year. While the picture is a true reflection of the Marian Finucane programme it is also reflective of current affairs programmes across the three national stations given that the same guests appear all too regularly across the three stations.

Percentage of breakdown of guests on the "Marian Finucane show" on RTÉ Radio One.
(Graph courtesy of July/August 2014 edition of Village)

In Britain, The House of Lords select committee on communications recently set up an inquiry into women in news and current affairs. A submission from ITV to the inquiry stated “Ensuring that we reflect social, cultural and gender diversity keeps our programmes relevant and gives them mass appeal.”At the recent PPIS Radio Hall of fame Awards RTE presenter Áine Lawlor also emphasised the need for “more diversity in the Irish media, in particular the people who are giving us the news and current affairs.” (10 September 2014)

Ireland has changed dramatically in recent times and the media needs to reflect that change. Policies are urgently needed to address the dominance of male voices on the airwaves. This, together with gender awareness training, would be a first step. This awareness should permeate all broadcast organisations, at every level and needs to be reviewed annually.

There is significant under-representation of women in politics – with just 16% of the 166 TDs in Dáil Éireann women. This is certainly one of the consequences of the “intentional, sexist bias” which sidelines women’s voices on the airwaves. (Una Mullally, 8 September 2014). Political parties are being forced to address this issue by the introduction of quotas. It is now well beyond time for media bosses to seriously address the issue of “missing voices” in current affairs programming.

Note: This survey was carried out by Lucy Keaveney and Dolores Gibbons from 20-24 October 2014.
Weekend programmes and Late Date were monitored for longer periods.

The views expressed in NWCI's blog do not necessarily reflect the views of NWCI