news media – The Concordian

Female broadcast journalists and their efforts to be noticed for their work

It turns out that the “effortless beauty” exuded by female broadcast journalists takes a lot of effort. Waking up and washing your face isn’t enough to be considered on-air ready.

As far as Laura Casella, anchor at Global News Montreal is concerned, “The Laura Casella who walks into work from bed with [her] hair tied up in a bun and no makeup … that Laura can’t necessarily go on TV.”

For female broadcast journalists, physical appearance plays the biggest part in one’s success. These female anchors are the liaison between viewers and the news station, but their journalistic talents are often overlooked.

Laura Casella speaks on behalf of all female journalists when discussing how she wants to be recognized for her hard work and talent within her profession. She wants people to watch her for her stories, not her good looks or wardrobe choices.

So, you noticed my hair but you didn’t hear anything I was saying? I want people to pay attention to the context of my story like they do with male anchors,” Casella adds.

Double standards between men and women are very prominent in broadcast news, according to Caroline Van Vlaardingen, anchor for CTV News Montreal. She believes that male anchors are easily forgiven. Whether they are balding, carrying extra weight or even wearing the same clothing day in and day out, men are not criticized.

Van Vlaardingen continues, “In fact, one Australian male anchor proved it by doing just that, wearing the same suit every day for a year while his female co-anchor changed her outfits every day, and no one noticed.”

Karl Stefanovic conducted this experiment because his co-anchor Lisa Wilkinson was receiving unsolicited critiques from viewers on her appearance. After a year dressed in blue, Stefanovic wasn’t surprised to see that no one ever commented on his wardrobe choices. His experiment confirmed that he is judged on his journalistic talent while his co-host is not.

There are some observations that can be made among the female anchors at both Global and CTV News. To name a few, heavy makeup is an essential part of the ‘getting ready’ process, as well as tighter clothing.

Through observation of 16 women who appeared onscreen on Oct. 23 on CTV and Global News Montreal, every single woman was wearing makeup and jewelry. 75 per cent of these women were white and approximately 65 per cent were blonde and thin. More than half of these women were under 35 years old.

“Acceptance of aging among women on the air is … a challenge,” says Van Vlaardingen. “The sad irony of this job as a woman, is that just as you step into your most experienced years and feel your most confident, your body and face begin to show your age.”

According to Van Vlaardingen, women who gain weight or develop wrinkles as they age tend to disappear from high-profile on-air jobs. Those that manage to stay on-air have a lot of work done to maintain their desired look. Botox, consistent hair colouring and dieting are common ways that female anchors preserve the youthful look.

Kim Sullivan, weather specialist at Global News Montreal, states that she never felt pressured to look a certain way by the management at Global.

“In my first year at Global, I gained 40 pounds because I was going through fertility and never once did I feel that I had to lose it.”

On the other hand, Sullivan does feel as though she doesn’t fit the look of the ‘ideal weather woman’ but emphasizes that this was a pressure she imposed on herself.

There’s one dress that all weather women have to have, so when I started my job at Global I bought it as a joke. It’s called the ‘weather girl dress.’”

There are underlying standards women must adhere to when considering a professional career in media. Huda Hafez, Journalism student at Concordia University, is an aspiring news anchor. Hafez explains the criticism these women receive in regards to their appearance makes her uncomfortable.

“I want to be a hard core journalist, not a piece of eye candy. I’m definitely aware of what I’m getting myself into, but we are a growing society and I’m hoping that things start and continue to change once I get on the air.”

Graphic by @the.beta.lab

Curtis spoke with The Concordian about leaving the Montreal Gazette and what he would say to his younger self

Christopher Curtis is an award-winning journalist in Montreal, who chose to leave his job at the Montreal Gazette to start a crowdfunded investigative journalism venture called The Rover with Ricochet media. Bursting out of the 24-hour news cycle, Curtis says his reporting is about going in-depth into unreported issues.

I spoke with Curtis about how he came to leave the Gazette, his new venture, and what he would say to his younger self.

HA: How was the Montreal Gazette experience for you, working there for so many years?

CC: It was great, I learned to become a journalist there. It was a really nurturing, caring place, but it was a place that had this cloud of uncertainty hanging over us. When I started out there were maybe 120 people at the Gazette and by the time I left there were like 60.

What happens is that over time when you’re not investing in journalism, and when you’re constantly having to cut employees, which was the case across the board at all Postmedia properties, the quality of the work begins to suffer.

We can feel that crunch and an urgency to produce content everyday. And if you have to produce something everyday, then you don’t have that extra time to build relationships in your own community or in a remote community. So, that’s why I started to consider leaving.

HA: What made you make that jump? It’s hard to leave a job!

CC: What happened was just, I think [over] the summer, I thought about the journalist that I was when I started out. I remember for one story I slept in a tent, just outside of a reserve in the middle of nowhere one night on a day off, just to get access to a story that might turn out to be good or might not turn out to be good. I was willing to take risks.

Would that kid look at me, almost ten years later, and say they’re proud of what I’ve become? I wasn’t so sure anymore.

I thought long and hard about my future at the Gazette. It felt like we were really just surviving and I didn’t really just want to survive anymore.

HA: I saw your video that announced your The Rover project, where you travelled to where the John A. Macdonald statue once stood, what was the significance of that?

CC: Well, my girlfriend suggested the John A. Macdonald statue, and I thought it was great. I think to me it was kind of apparent that there’s this pretty big disconnect with a lot of the traditional reporters and journalists and what’s actually happening on the ground in Indigenous communities. There isn’t nearly enough good journalism that feels like it comes from the ground up.

HA: What is good journalism?

CC: I think good journalism feels real. Good journalism talks to the people who are affected by a decision that’s made in a parliament, or in an office, or in the halls of power somewhere. It should always be about the people who don’t have a say in what happens, and [who] don’t feel like they have access to justice. That to me is good journalism.

HA: What would you say to yourself, if you could go back and talk to the younger, student reporter, you?

CC: I would say that journalism is a set of skills that take a very long time to master. You need to put in hours, that’s the one thing I did get right back then was I put in my time. You need to build journalism into your muscle memory, or at least the mechanics of journalism: interviewing, transcribing, writing fast copy. I think one year at The Link I wrote something like 120 stories.

What I would say is do all that, but when you get your hands on something that you really think is different or exceptional follow it through. But you need to master that basic shit. Bust your ass, and hustle hard, and when you can stand out, stand out!

Feature photo by Christine Beaudoin