When I was young, newsreading was a job reserved for men. Now it seems as if all that has changed!

FOR decades, men read the news on television, and that was that. Many of us grew up on the likes of the authoritative Charles Mitchel and folksy Don Cockburn on RTÉ; the rather louche Reginald Bosanquet and avuncular Kenneth Kendall across the water; and ‘the most trusted man in America’, Walter Cronkite, in the United States.

Indeed, so ingrained was this orthodoxy that when Angela Rippon became the first woman to anchor the national news on the BBC in 1975, she became an instant sensation, her fame only amplified when she popped out from behind the desk to dance with Morecambe and Wise during their Christmas special the following year.

Bafflement

In most countries, these lone men eventually were replaced by one man and one woman – the ‘television husbands and wives’, as they are known in the industry. There were knowing nods and winks, sometimes joint expressions of bafflement at the wackier stories, and a genuine chemistry, not necessarily of the sexual variety. At first, the men got to present the more serious items, while the women tended to get the fluffier stories. That patronising sexism soon was eliminated, and the basic model ever since has been man and woman getting their fair and equal share of duties.

For RTÉ, the flagship Six-One hourlong news (well, hour-long unless it’s summer, when the Montrose cat might be in with a shot of presenting it, before Reeling In The Years is repeated for the 74th time), followed the pattern, first with Bryan Dobson and Una O’Hagan, and later with Sharon Ní Bheoláin.

Dobbo and Sharon were an interesting combination, he rather stentorian and serious, she just as journalistically accomplished, yet still with the air of a woman who was on her way to a really great party the very second the end credits rolled.

Now, though, all has changed. As this newspaper was the first to reveal, Keelin Shanley has been drafted in from radio to co-anchor Six-One – but what few saw coming was that she would be joined by another woman. Caitríona Perry seemed to come from nowhere to take up the role as RTÉ’s US correspondent, but she made a personal triumph of it.

Where previous incumbent Charlie Bird moaned self-pityingly that it was a thankless posting because nobody would talk to little old RTÉ, Ms Perry hit the ground running and seemed to have much better access – even if the downside of that was being singled out by Donald Trump for her ‘nice smile’.

That awkward exchange aside, she has made an impressive job of trying to graft logic onto the Trump presidency, while also covering everything Stateside from hurricanes to the Academy Awards, and now will return from the Washington DC bureau to sit alongside Keelin. From January, the Six-One will be an all-female affair.

What perhaps is just as surprising is that the Nine O’Clock News, traditionally the poor relation and presented by a sole anchor, now will see Sharon ní Bheoláin on the later shift, in rotation with Eileen Dunne. A generation might very well grow up believing, in complete contrast to the experience of the older among us, that only women are allowed read the news.

Feminists

The surprise move has, rather predictably, been both welcomed and alternatively dismissed as another example of political correctness, with gender quota boxes not just being ticked but fully coloured in. On social media yesterday, the comments ranged from ‘I guess this is the kind of inequality the feminists can live with’ and a rather barbed ‘no men, because it’s more cost-effective for RTÉ, as women are paid less’ – to ‘Keelin and Caitríona will bring intellect, drive and focus on storytelling to Six-One’.

Whatever side of the argument you fall down on, it certainly is a radical move. No other channel routinely sees its bulletins co-anchored by women. In fact, the very idea is so rare across all television output in Britain that it was hailed as a breakthrough when the BBC’s frothy flagship light entertainment show, Strictly Come Dancing, put Claudia Winkleman out front alongside Tess Daly after the retirement of the late Bruce Forsyth, the first time two women ever had been trusted with the family silver.

What’s also significant is that unlike the UK, where all the resources seem to be thrown at the later bulletins, the ‘teatime’ news has always been the flagship here. It’s twice as long as the Nine O’Clock News, and with live interviews that frequently ended up on the next morning’s front pages. The most infamous, Brian Lenihan Sr’s ‘mature recollection’ interview by Seán Duignan, scuppered his chances of winning the presidency in 1990, and gave us a phrase that became a byword for what to say when you’re caught in a lie. Unless there’s a major breaking story, the nine o’clock news tends to get the crumbs. The video packages usually are not updated. There’s no fancy big studio, and no one gets up and walks around; instead, the newsreader sits behind a desk and reads the teleprompter. It’s about as interesting as watching cement set, so hopefully, given Sharon Ní Bheoláin’s livelier presenting skills, she will have freer rein to be a little more animated.

Devotion

Of course, only in Ireland would the news have to be at Six-One anyway, thanks to the obligation to show the Angelus, and there is no sign anything will change in that department. Perhaps that in part historically prompted our equal devotion to the teatime news (I knew families that prayed together in front of the telly at six o’clock), but a lot was down to older ways of life as well – the commuter arriving in off the train in the days when a nine-to-five job was just that, the farmer coming in from the fields for the tea, the schoolkids being made watch after two hours of The Den.

That sort of appointment television is on the wane, though, as the young watch RTÉ News Now on their phones (when they watch news at all), or simply livestream eyewitness video uploaded by civilians present at events such as the Arab Spring or a major incident such as the Las Vegas gun massacre earlier this month. In fact, television itself has become increasingly reliant on using such footage to enhance its own offering, blurring the line between hard news and reality TV.

RTÉ, in appointing Shanley and Perry, may indeed be going for a younger, hipper audience, though for some of those it seeks to target, anything less than sticking Kim Kardashian or Conor McGregor in front of the cameras probably will have little effect.

For now, the January changes will be fascinating. Personally, I don’t care who anchors the news so long as they can hold the powerful to account and enunciate clearly, something I find increasingly important as age inevitably starts to take its toll on my once-perfect hearing.

I do understand, though, why it is seen as an important milestone for women on air, as television and radio news have lagged far behind print media when it comes to gender equality at both frontof-house and managerial level.

So I wish Keelin Shanley and Caitríona Perry well, and I hope someone has the champagne ready for January.

After Six-One, they’ll deserve half a dozen of the other.