WOMEN IN MEDIA PROFILES
Leading journalists shared their insights and experiences at the first Women in Media National Conference at Bond University
WHEN Rachel Hancock was appointed the first female editor of the NT News, she prepared herself for a life of crocs, campaign journalism and cyclones. But first the “page three girls” had to go.
The weekly segment called the Sunday Stunner was a segment that featured women in bikinis accompanied by a brief story.
“As a female editor, I felt like I couldn’t continue with that in the paper,” Ms Hancock said.
“I think we received six letters, three were criticising me for cancelling it and three were from families thanking me.”
After stamping her authority on the paper, she then sought to expose some of the territory’s injustices, leading a feisty campaign to lower fuel prices and hold territory politicians to account.
But the NT News was never on track to lose its humour as Ms Hancock recalls one of her favourite headlines being “They stole my dog while I was on the bog”.
Now she is the deputy editor
at The Courier-Mail and Sunday Mail after moving to Brisbane 18 months ago and was a guest speaker at the first Women In Media National Conference at Bond University.
Ms Hancock said she first discovered her love of writing during high school in Adelaide but when she wasn’t offered entry into a Bachelor of Journalism, she made the decision to repeat her final year of schooling.
“It was a big decision for me but I’m glad I did it,” she said.
“When I later went to the University of South Australia I was one of the first journalism students to say, ‘I’m going to start in the country’ and it was the best decision I’ve made because they throw you in the deep end.
“One thing I’ve learnt in this industry is if you really want something you have to chase it because nobody is going to give it to you.”
Another speaker at last week’s conference, journalist Kimberley Porteous, covered 9/11, worked on the Panama Papers and is now a content strategist for the ABC.
She has interviewed World War II European migrants, and saw them from that time as vulnerable children who would come to call Australia home.
“Everyone had an amazing story. These people were so vulnerable and traumatised by the war,” Ms Porteous said.
“Some had lost their parents and they had to rebuild a life here from nothing.”
Ms Porteous has also seen depravity through the trade of human body parts, outlined in the award-winning report Skin and Bone that investigated the recycling of body tissues in Ukraine. “It’s extremely frustrating because journalists will often have a story and they’re just missing that bit of evidence,” she said.
This had been the case as she worked on the Panama Papers. “We had the details of a few ruling families in Asian nations but there was missing data that referred to another spreadsheet,’’ she said.
We were throwing everything we had at this data set we didn’t know how to open and still couldn’t crack it. There might not have been anything in there but when you’ve gone down a rabbit hole and the door is closed it’s frustrating.”
Though she has done all this and won three Walkley Awards, she still jokes that her invitation to the Women in Media Conference must have been a mistake.
“I think it is very much a man’s industry,” she said. “We know we have pay equity but we don’t ask for pay rises.”