Just because I’m a white young woman doesn’t mean I don’t deserve my job at SBS
In this opinion piece SBS journalist Ellie Laing hits back at a report in The Australian suggesting she and colleagues were hired because they were attractive.
I’m a 32 year old married woman who like so many, endures a daily struggle with frizzy hair and the occasional breakout.
So when a compliment suggesting I might be, in some way, “attractive” comes my way, I’ll take it.
With delight.
What I won’t take is a suggestion that because I’m “attractive”, white and a woman it somehow detracts from the credibility and substance of the news service I work for.
Yet that’s exactly what I woke up to on Monday morning.
A photo of me, in the middle of the media section of The Australian, along with a number of other photos of my “attractive” female colleagues – suggesting our boss had deliberately hired us because of the way we looked, and because we were women.
The photos used in The Australian’s article this week.
And the suggestion was there – that the news service has suffered as a result.
It said SBS newsrooms now buzz with “young”, female reporters who were good looking and Anglo-Celtic.
Of course it failed to mention anything about our abilities. Our work-ethic. Our experience.
No, the author left all that out.
In my case it didn’t mention the near decade of experience I could bring to the newsroom after enjoying a long career across radio and TV at the ABC, Seven and Ten.
Never mind the fact that I work damned hard.
There was nothing in there either about the network of contacts I’ve built up over the years by earning people’s trust.
And no mention of the six day week I work at the moment to fit in a day of Journalism teaching at Macleay College – nurturing the reporters of the future.
It said SBS’s Head of News and Current Affairs, Jim Carroll, had wanted a more commercial approach and better ratings.
Heaven forbid! A News Director that wants to get more people watching!
The author claimed while SBS viewers want world news, the newsroom is focusing more on domestic news content.
Watch our bulletin and you’ll see just how much world content there is. There’s no other evening bulletin like it.
But viewers also deserve strong coverage of major local stories. They want to know what’s going on at home. Improving our domestic coverage is important to providing a complete news service.
And then the article went further, criticising SBS for covering more lifestyle stories. It cited examples including one about an app, a Cambodian-Australian fashion designer and a ballet dancer.
Oh please! Forgive us for covering a technological advancement, a Cambodian-Australian refugee turned fashion designer who’d overcome incredible hardship to see his designs gracing the catwalk, and a Japanese-Australian ballet dancer who was now the Principal Artist of The Australian Ballet.
Forgive us for dedicating a few minutes to the Arts! Or showcasing multicultural Australia at its best!
Any good news producer will tell you bulletins are about balance. Especially when you’re covering so much heavy content about fighting around the world. If only I had a dollar for every time someone told me “why doesn’t the news include good news?.” People want to hear good news stories. And this is a perfect example of telling inspiring stories, that leave viewers uplifted.
There is no doubt this is a time of incredible change in the media industry. Across the board, whether in papers, radio or TV we are all doing more with less.
I agree that as budgets are cut, jobs are shed, and experienced people leave, quality will suffer.
Journalism is so important. We have the ability to shape people’s views of the world. We can make people smarter, more informed and can even inspire them to be better people.
That passion is why I was hired.
Not because, on occasion, I scrub up alright.
Oh, and as an aside, the author got my name wrong. Perhaps if he’d watched the bulletin a bit closer he would have seen I’ve changed my name to Ellie Laing.
I got married late last year. And yes, on my wedding day, I looked the most “attractive” I’ve ever been.
- Ellie Laing is a news reporter for SBS
They’re just jealous Ellie, they can’t remember the last time they reported anything without putting their master’s spin on it.
When you have no credibility to offer, all you can do is sneer at your perceived competition.
News should grow up and stop drawing attention to their own failures.
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Sbs is no longer what it used to stand for.
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Here here Pugwash. Look at one of their sister publication in the UK and the hogwash it reports. Oh, look at the Terrorgraph too. No credibility left at News.
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This is reminiscent of the “Women’s Officer” fiasco at the University of Tasmania, in which a perfectly competant man was forced to step down because he wasn’t a woman.
The fault isn’t with Ellie: I’m sure she’s a brilliant journo. The fault is with SBS for hiring her in the first place.
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Looking at the entire national sales team at News’ Liverpool st digs, I remember seeing one Chinese bloke, and one Indian guy who WASN’T in IT. Everyone else was white. Yet for some reason, they fail to mention this.
Glass houses, News, glass houses.
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If you really were an intelligent and thoughtful person you wouldn’t be reading The Oz and you certainly wouldn’t be taking anything it said to heart.
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@Sarah same can be said for The Oz.
Ellie and Co… you just keep doing you. We’re loving it.
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Fortunately, it was only in the OZ, so no-one will have read it.
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Journalism and The Australian Media section? Can’t draw the comparison… A poorly read and written Media Mean Girls these days…
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I know who’d I rather get my news from.
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Blondes are gods on earth, and if SBS decides to ignore the statistical discrepancy between their blonde representation and blondes (excluding all those who dye their hair blonde to be gods too) in society statistics, what’s the trouble with that.
Whether the Aztecs, Russian mafia, or cricketers wives, everybody worships blondes , and so maybe does the SBS audience. Good on you Jim . If you have the mute button on, at least SBS is still attracting your attention.
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I am very proud to say I have worked with Ellie Laing and she is without doubt one of the most dedicated, compassionate and accurate journalists around. Watch this space.
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It is ridiculous that you or any person could be judged for your suitability based on your appearance and ethnicity in this industry. But surely you can understand how obnoxious it is for you to write about the struggles of a pretty, white woman to get a broadcasting job. In reality, the likelihood for a non-white woman or an ‘ugly’ woman to get the same role at major broadcasters is slim at best. Whereas, (white) men can have a face only a mother could love and be extremely successful and face little judgement base on appearance.
I’m not saying that it’s okay, but your ‘struggle’ is kinda small relative to the systemic problem of racism and sexism in broadcasting and entertainment.
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The Veronica Silverstone of our generation
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When SBS started, the only people you saw on the channel were presenters with non-Anglo Saxon backgrounds. How times have changed.
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Bring back Mary Kostakidis…SBS needs her !
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Thank god for SBS and its team of talented on air (and off air) woman and men.
P.S. Does anyone actually read The Australian?
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Well done, Ellie. Someone had to stand up and point out how ridiculous that piece in the Oz was. The most selective piece of so-called journalism I’ve read in a long time.
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Oddjob – why is it wrong for SBS to hire Ellie? SBS is supposed to reflect the diversity of the Australian community. In the past couple of years it has employed people of Lebanese background, Chinese background, Sri Lankan background, Indonesian background, Indigenous heritage, Syrian background – and yes, a couple of blonde Anglos. Pretty good cross section of society, I would have thought.
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Seriously – you lot are all completely bloody missing the point.
SBS has a charter to explore issues of multicultural Australia and from all accounts what is happening in that newsroom is a massive departure from that remit in a bid to chase ratings – which unsurprisingly is failing miserably.
The newsroom looked for people with an ethnic background and language skills to engage with those communities and report on stories from a unique perspective. A reporter of Fijian background would cover a coup in Fiji, an fluent-speaking Bahasa reporter would go cover an earthquake in Java, a Scottish reporter would be sent to the UK. All provided insight and perspective not seen on other networks and not represented by any other media outlet. It was an important piece of the news landscape.
Now SBS news is full of local stories that can be seen on every other network, fill in stories from the BBC or al-Jazeera and magazine style ‘light pieces’ on a fashion designer with a Vietnamese surname or some such. It’s a pointless middle ground trying to place a foot in each camp – which is failing.
Ellie may be an excellent journalist, I’m sure she is, but this has NOTHING to do with criticism of her being hired for being a blonde. It’s EVERYTHING to do with how SBS is losing its way and setting itself up for oblivion by becoming the token multicultural multi-channel on the ABC.
So put your feministic pitchforks away and understand what is really happening in there – the death of a critically important voice on the news landscape.
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Ask Channel TEN about all of Jim Carroll’s achievements at the network
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Oh what rubbish! The UN recognizes 206 independent states. You think SBS should have someone from each of them? And all of a level senior enough to send overseas? That is ridiculous. And to suggest it doesn’t cover world news is completely false. Even in the past few days it has run stories that no one else has: South African violence, Yemen, Nigeria, Iraq, Mediterranean migrants. And if they have run them, no one treated it as seriously as SBS.
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If this lady is good enough to do the job, she gets the job, full stop. SBS is publicly funded augmented by advertising revenue. It is therefore accountable to the public at large, not just the + or – 5% share of audience it generates to a niche audience. The advertisers can please themselves if they want to communicate to its audiences or not, but it also owes the public at large a wide enough appeal to discharge its responsibility as a semi-public broadcaster.
I’m as much of a stakeholder in SBS and support SBS as a credible and necessary television outlet, folded into the ABC or not. The news does not have to be end to end non-local content, delivered by only by ethnic presenters to the exclusion of the likes of what appears to be a very capable Ms. Laing.
There’s nothing wrong with chasing audience, and there’s nothing wrong with Ms Laing’s appointment as long as she delivers what she’s paid to do.
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As an attractive young woman myself, what I have found to be true is if it’s between me and an equally qualified person, but perhaps not as attractive, then I get the job.
I don’t think its fair, but I’m more than happy to take that little leg up in life.
I’ve also been in many a news room and find the above to be true. They ARE intelligent and hard working, but they are also better looking than those who didn’t make the cut.
#life
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Let’s be very honest with ourselves here: SBS’s core audience does not care for the journalistic chops of its reporters. They care that they’re being represented.
Putting a white face on the screen to bark the news at them in the same fashion as every other white-washed network in this country is going to alienate that core audience.
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I don’t know Ms Laing or are familiar with her work. I have no doubt she is as good and experienced as she says she is.
But what an amazing coincidence that all these top gun journalists finding their way into TV all happen to be young, white, female, usually blonde… Channel 9 in particular seems to be tapping into this startling coincidence in genetics. Not that I’m going to defend The Australian’s media reporting (which these days is to journalism what Dumb Street was to the acting profession) but maybe SBS has decided to forget 35 years of presenting Australian diversity and follow the same path…
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Good on you for speaking up. You are your own boss. Power to you
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While I think it is a bit rich for The Australian to claim that white female journos are only being employed at SBS for their looks, it is also a tad naive for Ellie Laing to claim that nothing is wrong at SBS. People who’ve worked there for years are being overlooked for a new influx of commercial journos who don’t understand what SBS is about. For Ellie Laing to claim that there’s nothing wrong with the new boss chasing ratings is a damn shame.
SBS is not about ratings. It has an important role to play in covering multicultural and Indigenous Australia, and I see this happening less and less. More importantly, such coverage is included in the SBS Charter. A new boss can’t just decide to chase ratings at the expense of what is in the charter. Yeah sure, they still cover a story about a refugee overcoming hardship to become a fashion designer and that’s great. But those kinds of reports are being run at the expense of more difficult “bad news”.
And you want to hear some of the stories I’ve come across of long-time SBS journos being given brutal advice about how to make themselves more attractive on TV. I’m talking award-winning journos who’ve spent years dedicating themselves to stories that no other broadcaster, and much of the public, was interested in. Should they just stop covering those stories because it’s not what most people want to watch? But hey, at least they’re wearing a nice jacket!
There are quite a few long-standing, respected SBS journos who’ve all recently left the organisation. It seems a bit too much of a coincidence to me.
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Not all journalists.
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SBS broadcasts the best news in Australia. ABC is there abouts also.
Any fodder from the commercial channels or Foxtel (Murdoch) is all one sided clap trap.
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SBS is not meant to be about attractive, white females, regardless of experience. Its about seeing the real multi cultural Australia reflected on its service. And by the way, ten years experience is not a lot in journalism. People with three times that have been tossed out to accommodate young, white, attractive new blood.
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Didn’t you know WHITE is the NEW BLACK !
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Sbs is clearly losing sight of its vision. It’s now trying to copy Channel 7, 9 and 10.
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White and privileged. Fuzzy hair and the occasional breakout are your struggles? Get real
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A blonde who went straight from university to a job in broadcasting (probably management). Sounds like real diversity. And they wonder why TV is losing viewers…
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It is all about view points.
Yet the same old viewpoint from the entrenched powerful cultural group
There can be no more arguments for this broadcaster to be have a hidden licence fee that is silently paid for by ALL Australians. SBS’s remit is valueless
Cut them free of their funding privilege.
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Newspapers are irrelevant.
There are as relevant as the horse was relevant while the internal combustion motor vehicle was first introduced.
There are still horses in the World; they’re just not as pervasive in transport as they used to be.
Someone here will comment “newspapers aren’t dead, they’re still active and vibrant” But they will be wrong.
A man jumping off a cliff can say “I’m not dead!” – but only for a while.
Why would anyone care what the dinosours in Rupert’s dinosaurium have to say? Or are they Dodos?
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