#MeToo in the Y


Louise Tickle on sexual harassment in the newsroom and how to tackle it


ou are protected from sexual harassment in the work place by the Equality Act 2010 – or so says the TUC’s new guide on the subject The guide adds:“It does not matter how long you have worked for your employer or whether


you are a permanent employee, an apprentice or a trainee, on a fixed-term contract or supplied by an agency, you are still protected.”* In theory, but in practice? In the media, it doesn’t always


feel that way. In the wake of #MeToo campaign, while there is greater awareness of what behaviour is, and is not acceptable, female journalists are still experiencing harassment and discrimination. “He was a senior editor. We got chatting in the pub and he


was giving me careers advice,” recalls Jenny Cooper. “As we were saying goodbye, he grabbed me and started snogging me, tongue down my throat, quite handsy as well. I tried to push him away twice. He went ‘come back, come to mine’, and you know, he was married, with kids … I was like no, I can’t.” Cooper, who was early in her career, was working casual


shifts at a national news organisation, hoping for a contract. “From that moment on, I didn’t go to the pub any more because I was worried about seeing him,” she says. Quite apart from the stress and anxiety caused by his actions, there was an opportunity cost. “I’d been told that no one ever got a promotion without going to the pub on a Friday, and I can see why because you can talk to people who you never normally speak to in the newsroom,” she says. “You meet senior people as well as junior – it’s really nice. And I just stopped going because I felt really uncomfortable.” Cooper did not want to see her assailant outside work and


tried to avoid him in the office. Did he ever apologise? She laughs quietly. “He never really spoke to me again.” While in the end she did tell management what had happened


and was impressed at how well she was supported, it seems “a lot of young women speak to other young women about harassment but they don’t report, says Stephanie Boland, a Prospect magazine editor and a cofounder of The Second Source. Set up by female journalists to combat sexual harassment and discrimination, The Second Source has held meetings, where, Boland says “it was striking how often the same reasons for not reporting kept coming up. “ ‘I won’t be taken seriously’; ‘he’s more senior and more valuable to the company’; ‘my contract is easier to terminate’,” she says. As Cooper found, when there are multiple allegations about one person, organisations find it easier to act. Sexual assault can follow a period where a woman is


12 | theJournalist


becoming discomfited at work. Journalist Noelle Jarvis still finds it hard to say the word ‘rape’. But that is what happened a few years ago, when she was in her early 20s and a colleague 10 years older ‘established a friendship of sorts’. “He would start conversations about all the girls who were


interested in him and ask a lot of questions about my personal life too, which I laughed off or made polite comments about,” she recalls. “Retrospectively, I felt uncomfortable because I didn’t know how to tell him ‘this isn’t an appropriate conversation and I don’t want to have it’.” Jarvis says: “He ultimately forced himself on me” despite her repeatedly saying “no”. Though she asked him to acknowledge what happened and apologise, “it was like getting blood from a stone,” she says. “Eventually, I managed to drag [out] an irate sentiment along the lines of ‘fine, I’m sorry if you felt like that’.” She did not feel she could discuss such a deeply personal issue with anyone at her workplace, a news outlet with a culture she felt was concerned only with protecting senior staff. “It barely crossed my mind to think that anyone would care,” she says. The chair of Women in Journalism (WiJ), Sunday Times


editorial director Eleanor Mills, says that while her newspaper has taken a strong, explicit stand against sexual harassment and discrimination, several WiJ events have uncovered a distressing picture. “What was striking and upsetting is that […] it wasn’t so much the older men who were the worst perpetrators, it was


The advice from ACAS


The following is an excerpt from the ACAS guidelines on sexual harassment, which can be downloaded from www.acas.org.uk/index. aspx?articleid=6078.


• Sexual harassment is unwanted conduct of a sexual nature. It has the purpose or effect of violating the dignity of a worker, or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for them. Something can still be considered sexual harassment even if the


alleged harasser didn’t mean it to be.


• An employer should make clear to workers what sort of behaviour would be considered sexual harassment and that it is unacceptable.


• If a complaint is reported to police, or criminal court proceedings are being pursued, an employer must still investigate the complaint as an employment matter. An employer may then follow its disciplinary procedure, without awaiting the outcome of criminal


proceedings, provided this can be done fairly.


• Experiencing sexual harassment is often extremely emotional and distressing for the worker involved. This means an employer should make reporting such a matter as stress free as possible.


• It is also likely to be very distressing for a worker to be accused of sexual harassment. Whilst a fair and thorough investigation will need to be carried out, accused workers should also be offered support and sensitivity.


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