Download issue (PDF) - Nieman Foundation - Harvard University

Women: International
the likeness of our names. Apparently
they thought our scurrilous rag could
be mistaken for a glossy debs and
homes, frocks and gardens kind of
magazine. We kept calm, used the press,
got Britain-wide publicity, and forced
Harpers to climb down. Three years
later, the nightmare of distribution costs
did what H&Q could not and closed us
down.
That was enough fringe activity and
enough time worrying only about
women and the dinosaurs of print. For
the next decade, I was in broadcasting—radio
and television—and discovered
that a good live broadcaster can
set a distinctive news agenda without
too much fuss. However, the print challenge
remained.
By 1995, I’d become deputy editor
of The Scotsman, Scotland’s primary
quality daily newspaper. At 182 years
of age, the newspaper needed to be
modernized and made more attractive
to younger people and women. As I
looked across newspapers, radio and
TV stations I could find plenty of female
reporters but hardly any female
correspondents, lead writers, political
columnists, news editors, program
editors, newspaper editors, or owners.
Jobs that required comment, judgment
and well-cultivated contacts, jobs that
shaped public opinion and set agendas,
these jobs were filled mostly by
men.
I wondered why. And I wondered if
it mattered.
It did. Women readers were drifting
away from almost all broadsheet papers.
The Scotsman, in 1995, was no
exception. Was the content
unreflectively male oriented? Discussions
about this were frustrating. A
well-run paper is rarely a deeply reflective
one. The men who ran The Scotsman
did not—perhaps they could not—
challenge their own decision-making
on a daily basis. The relentless pressure
of paper production required
unselfconscious decision-making about
who should cover which stories and
how those stories should be written.
The suggestion that their decision-making
habits might be a source of trouble
provoked a very frosty, hostile reaction.
I realized there was only one way to
demonstrate how a set of values can
underpin each word, picture, opinion
and promotion. I suggested that one
edition of the paper should be written,
produced and edited by the women on
the paper and published as the
Scotswoman on International Women’s
Day, 1994. I was amazed when I discovered
I didn’t have to argue the case at
the next board meeting. Some men
reacted so strongly, so immediately,
and so angrily against the very idea of
change that they converted the more
moderate men into my instant allies.
Creating Scotswoman
This left us 10 weeks to achieve a
world first—the first Scotswoman paper.
Some women argued the idea was
patronizing, that there wasn’t one
“women’s view” of any issue and that
the whole project was a token waste of
time. I let the staff argue out these
important questions and come to a
majority decision. Thankfully, the decision
was to proceed.
A month before this paper would be
published, 30 female journalists sat in
a room for two hours and discussed
news coverage. At first, it was hard.
When no one has asked your opinion
on the big stories, it’s tempting to revert
to passive silence or criticism. But
soon the opinions were flowing. What
is foreign news? Pictures of men in
uniforms with guns, and men in suits
with power. Much war and conflict
reporting is about how people die and
fight, cheat and wrangle, but has little
to do with how people live in different
cultures. No one suggested we ignore
coverage of war, but we also wanted to
make more space for stories about topics
like paternity leave in Norway. Apparently
lots of men there use their
state-funded leave to go fishing. The
female politicians who introduced the
leave were apparently checking up on
the men’s whereabouts. Everyone
agreed that was the sort of story they
wanted to see in foreign news.
Additionally, we wanted women
being actors in the news we published,
and not simply seen as passive objects.
But the truth was then, and is now, that
women just don’t make the “news” as
news is conventionally defined.
Women’s opinions don’t usually shake
stock markets. Nor do their actions
normally provoke wars or strikes or
disputes. Their casual purchases don’t
destroy or create thousands of jobs.
Their work doesn’t usually attract Nobel
Prizes or vast research awards, and
their hopes rarely shape new political
parties or movements.
We wanted to produce a real newspaper,
not a fantasy one, so we had to
find ways to make women’s views newsworthy.
I employed a prominent transportation
expert to look at a new proposed
motorway round Glasgow.
Professor Carmen Hass-Klau analyzed
the evidence and concluded that the
council was indirectly discriminating
against women by spending millions
on new motorways, not on new public
transport. Her views made news, even
by existing standards. Then, we found
the most inaccessible train platform in
Scotland and challenged the male boss
of the Scottish Trade Union Movement
to cross it with one baby stroller, two
children and four bags of shopping.
The resulting pictures later persuaded
Railtrack to install lifts.
We had a men’s page, too, with a
self-examination graphic for testicular
cancer. Strangely, this was one male
disease that the male-led news team
had never thought to cover. There was
also a fashion spread on how men can
match their shoes with their briefcases.
We decided to make a statement about
the cynical use of naked women in
fashion shoots by using an undressed
male model—with the briefcase covering
his modesty! This went down surprisingly
well—with both sexes. Humor
was important among all the
“earnest” stuff that the male staff feared
and readers might have expected.
The presses went into action and
vans and trains shot off around Britain
to deliver this very special edition. The
Scotswoman sold out in about three
hours. There was publicity about it in
22 countries and letters and faxes came
pouring in for weeks afterwards. The
vast majority were supportive; a few
were appalled.
By the next morning, it was business
66 Nieman Reports / Winter 2001