When Nine Network news director Fiona Dear got promoted to what had been her dream job, she was angry.
Instead of being able to celebrate the pay-off for years of hard work as a journalist, she instead found she had to ‘clean up someone else’ s***’.
She took over the role in May after veteran news director Darren Wick stood down following allegations of inappropriate behaviour towards female staff.
Ms Dear was interviewed for the Women for Media Report 2024, released on Wednesday.
Published by the Women’s Leadership Institute , the report looked at gender bias in n newsrooms.
Ms Dear did not shy away from the issues at Nine, saying when she started the job a lot of women in the newsroom were really angry.
‘I worked in the newsroom in that period,’ she said.
‘I was angry as a woman who worked in that environment at that time.
Nine Entertainment television news and current affairs head Fiona Dear
‘I was angry that I was given this opportunity and had to clean up someone else’s s***. This sounds selfish but I was angry.’
She said her focus was to regain the trust of staff.
‘A lot of the trust, particularly with women in the newsroom, has been eroded,’ she said.
She plans to give women back their voices because many felt her predecessors had taken them away.
An independent report into Nine Entertainment last week revealed the company has systemic issues with abuse of power along with bullying, discrimination and sexual harassment across the company.
Based on 122 interviews, it concluded ‘known perpetrators’ were not dealt with and victims, also staff, were just warned to avoid them.
Another aim is to improve the promotional process so more women feel they are qualified for vacancies.
The Women for Media Report, led by political scientist and academic Andrea Carson, said gender bias was rife within newsrooms despite nearly equal numbers of male and female journalists.
It found women still disproportionately cover ‘soft news’ stories, while men write the ‘hard news’ topics and women have less access to exclusive tags and less visibility on newspaper’s premium pages.
Seven has also faced allegations of bullying, misogyny and toxic workplace culture.
Ms Dear did not shy away from the issues at Nine, saying when she started the job a lot of women in the newsroom were really angry
A Four Corners investigation into the organisation found it to be a ‘second chance club’ for senior men and was linked to allegations of bullying, sexism and assault that have left staff hospitalised or unable to work.
An additional review of experiences of racism at the ABC earlier this month found ‘systemic’ issues had put disadvantage against diverse staff.
Prof Carson earlier this year produced a study that said there was significant discrimination against women in local government and her latest report found the same dynamic in media, despite those two fields having very high rates of female participation.
For instance, the study found a disproportionate number of male experts quoted in news articles – estimated at 80 per cent.
‘Gender equality is vital in the news media for democracy and civic engagement,’ she said.
‘We need to shift the norms of who we see and hear as leaders and experts – and that starts with bringing more diverse voices into public commentary.
‘Both in terms of who produces the news and who features in it.’
The report made six recommendations to news organisations to fix the gender bias imbalance, including encouraging women to take on roles in traditionally male-dominated reporting areas.
As well, it suggested increasing the representation of women in high visibility pages, using more female sources and developing policies to protect female journalists from online harassment.
A report into women of colour in n workplaces found two in three said they had experienced discrimination, a 10 per cent increase from 2021.
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