‘And here’s the news’: analysing the evolution of the marketed newsreader

Abstract

People know me. VC:Well, I'm very happy for you. RB:I'm very important. I have many leather-bound books and my apartment smells of rich mahogany.

Behind the mask: women in television news

“…In 2013, Australian journalist and academic Wendy Bacon led a research project that published some data for news website newmaltida.com.au, concluding that ‘men hold the power at the top of Australian commercial TV’ in news and current affairs. Like Place and Roberts (2006) and Bainbridge and Bestwick (2010), she found that there were almost equal numbers of women and men in television presenting roles. It should be noted that these findings are in contrast to those of Angela Romano’s (2010), whose report for the Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP) 5 found that just 26% of television (and radio) news stories were presented by a female reporter or newsreader (p. 15).…”

“…2 Historically, journalism has been a male-dominated occupation, and in television news there has been a prevailing assumption that news is better received by the audience if bulletins are reported and presented by men (Cann and Mohr, 2001: 162). While as early as 1996 Australian television news executives like Terry Plane (cited in Cann and Mohr, 2001) were proclaiming that women were accepted, and even preferred, by female viewers as authority figures, and reporter Peter Ford later suggested that ‘the glass ceiling … for women in Australian television is smashed into a million pieces’ (cited in Bainbridge and Bestwick, 2010: 209), today there are still substantial barriers for women in television. In terms of numerical status across all news platforms in Australia, women remain under-represented at almost every level (Bylery, 2011), most obviously in decision-making roles (North, 2009; 2012a).…”

“…In 2006, Place and Roberts (2006: 275) concluded that female news anchors outnumbered males in many Australian states, while Bainbridge and Bestwick (2010: 210) later found supporting evidence noting that, at Channel Seven and Channel Nine, women marginally outnumbered men in newsreading across all states, although sports presenting was still a male-dominated part of news broadcasts. They also found that female anchors dominated the ‘soft’ weekend editions, while their male counterparts most often read the ‘hard-hitting’ weekday bulletins (Bainbridge and Bestwick, 2010: 211). In 2013, Australian journalist and academic Wendy Bacon led a research project that published some data for news website newmaltida.com.au, concluding that ‘men hold the power at the top of Australian commercial TV’ in news and current affairs.…”

“…While most research now suggests that female newsreaders in Australia have achieved numerical parity with male newsreaders (Bacon et al, 2013; Bainbridge and Bestwick, 2010; Place and Roberts, 2006) and women make up, on average, about a third of reporting roles (Bacon et al, 2013; Romano, 2010: 15), there ‘remains questions over how much power women themselves actually exercise over news production and what is broadcast’ (Bainbridge and Bestwick, 2010: 210). For example, women most often present news on weekends rather than weekdays and, because of this, are more likely to present soft news whereas men are more likely to present ‘hard hitting, authoritative news’ (Bainbridge and Bestwick, 2010: 210). In this way, television news has similarities with other news platforms where the gender of a reporter or news presenter acts as a signifier for soft and hard news with soft news having a lower status in the news hierarchy in all media platforms (see North, 2016).…”

Promotion culture and on-air promotion timing

“…A promo serves to promote a medium while simultaneously constructing an image of it (Bainbridge & Bestwick, 2010). No longer is promotion a secondary tactical device.…”