FOURTH ESTATE. 13/05/1988

Rights Information
Year
1988
Reference
F91267
Media type
Moving image
Item unavailable online
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Rights Information
Year
1988
Reference
F91267
Media type
Moving image
Item unavailable online
Series
FOURTH ESTATE
Place of production
New Zealand/Aotearoa
Categories
Television
Duration
0:12:00
Production company
Television New Zealand
Credits
Print Research: Vera Priestley
Producer: Ian Garner

“Tonight’s contributor on Fourth Estate is Ian Cross, a former Chief Reporter of the Dominion newspaper, Ian was awarded a Newman Fellowship in Journalism at Harvard University in 1954. He also edited the NZ Listener from 1973 to 1977.”

“Good Evening. I’m going to be a bit of a male chauvinist swine tonight. The cause is a paper to the Royal Commission on Social Policy by a feminist organisation called Media Women. Wellington’s Dominion newspaper reported it as saying this on April 16th: ‘The male perspective continues to be so dominant in our media that it is seen as the norm and the demand of women to have their perspective included is seen as a marginal issue... Women have had little access to the media.’ Little access for women? What caused me to choke on my breakfast toast when I read this was the fact that in the same morning paper, the front page lead was written by a woman, the photo feature dominating the front page was written by a woman, an article spread across five columns at the foot of the front page was written by a woman. On page two the major political stories of the day were written by a woman. The overseas item on the same page from Paris and written by a woman. And on the leader page, the main article was written by a - yes, you’ve guessed it. The Dominion is no exception in the number of its women staff, from North Cape to the Bluff, print journalism is hugely strengthened by blessed sisterhood.”

Ian Cross refers to various women journalists and articles written by women, including Sandra Coney and Phillida Bunkles ‘An Unfortunate Experiment at National Women’s’. He then comments on the attack in print journalism of men and colonists.