viewpoint We need to be mindful of unconcious bias, says Michelle Perry


If we preach it, we should practise it too


A


few months ago, I heard a news clip on Radio 4 about the rise of robots and which jobs robots were likely to steal fi rst.


I am not talking about 50 years from now. The report was focusing on a much nearer future, with one study predicting that within a decade a quarter of jobs would be automated. I remember uttering a huge sigh of relief and a comic “phewee” to distract my then 10-month old son (pictured) from his pea-scattering when the broadcaster said journalism was not likely to be one of those jobs stolen from humans any time soon. I didn’t pay any more attention to the broadcast because it suddenly hit me that it was not robots that I had to worry about but other journalists, as the ranks of the freelance community had swollen during my maternity leave. Despite being a seasoned freelance


journalist, the return to work suddenly felt very daunting. The post-baby fug is not a myth but, that aside, I was returning to a fast-changing journalism environment. I have chosen to work on a part-time, freelance basis. My partner’s job does not cater for modern part-time or parental job sharing practices. So the onus to work fl exibly has fallen on me – like most women. Often part-time freelancing is trickier


than freelancing full time. Do I tell editors I work part time? Will I be judged as less reliable? Or less fl exible? To be fair, most editors are well organised and plan far in advance, providing generous deadlines. But it means working both days and evenings (once the kids are in bed) is becoming the norm. Over the past four years, I have taken


two years off work (a year for each child) after holding permanent,


full-time senior editorial positions at various business magazines over my almost 20-year career as a journalist. During those “out-of-work” periods,


my networking has been nonexistent and there have been a lot of staff changes. Editors have moved on and/or up. Publishers have closed down print magazines in favour of digital editions. Newspapers and magazines have been increasingly haemorrhaging journalists over the past fi ve years. And the future promises more of the same. All of these factors have infl ated the


ranks of the previously fairly exclusive band of freelance business journalists I belonged to. Not only have I lost a variety of


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Freelancing part time can be tricky. Do I tell editors I work part time? Will I be judged as less reliable? Or less fl exible?


contacts but also many excellent editors I worked for have gone freelance. The competition is much greater than I have ever known and, although arguably with digital journalism word counts are limitless, there are fewer and fewer quality newspapers and magazines in which to be published. For the past fi ve months, I have been slowly renewing my contacts and forging new ones. I am now working comfortably again. To refresh my sector


knowledge, I pore over what remains of the printed business press to see what has been covered and how, and who is writing it. What I have noticed is that, although more and more women have become business journalists over the 16 years I’ve been covering business, the regular columnists in most business magazines are still male, pale and, dare I say it, stale. Today, many editors of business


magazines are women, so why aren’t they hiring in their likeness? More and more women work in business and reach the highest echelons. We, as business journalists, have regularly criticised company boards for not ensuring more women make it to the top. So why aren’t we seeing more female business columnists? Perhaps editors have not noticed they are not representing the changing face of their readership. Perhaps the prose is well crafted and topical, and there is no good reason to change columnists. I am defi nitely not advocating hiring women for the sake of it. But why, when the pool of excellent female business journalists blossoms, do I still see so few women columnists in the business press? Maybe it is time to listen to our own


criticisms and consider our unconscious biases when it comes to selecting columnists to engage audiences.


Michelle Perry is a part-time freelance business journalist


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