Hackettes at the Melbourne Age
are asking some tough questions today after the paper yesterday passed
over a highly-regarded female candidate to make Warwick Green the
paper’s senior editor in charge of sport.

The hackettes say they have no problem with Green, who’s popular among staff and did a good job on the Sunday Age,
but they’re scratching their heads as to why current sports editor,
Clea Hinks, was passed over for the top job – which has the confusing
title of Deputy Editor (Sport) – especially given the dearth of women
in the top ranks of the paper.

Age editor Andrew Jaspan said he wasn’t aware of particular
staff concerns over the representation of women in the paper’s senior
ranks. “As usual we advertised. Three [people] applied. An interview
panel recommended one to me. I have spoken to all. No one raised the
issues you claim,” he said.

But a quick review of senior ranks does support the theory that there’s a gender balance problem at The Age.
There are few women in the most senior ranks and the newsroom culture
is undeniably blokey. Associate editor Pamela Bone is a highly regarded
columnist, and along with political editor Michelle Grattan and chief
football writer Caroline Wilson, is in the top ranks of women on the
paper – but none of the three are primarily responsible for the paper’s
day-to-day editorial decision making.

Among the most senior
female editors are chief-of-staff Margaret Easterbrook, foreign editor
Mary-Anne Toy, Insight editor Gay Alcorn, media editor Alice Ghent, Melbourne Magazine editor Sally Robinson and Sunday Age
deputy editor Sally Heath, but they’re hopelessly outnumbered in the
top echelons by blokes, most of whom hold even more influential
positions. A recent decision by the former editor of the SaturdayAge, Jo Chandler, to become a senior writer has further thinned female influence at the paper.

CRIKEY: Almost 70% of Crikey readers are male and we’ve also been (rightly) accused of being too blokey, so The Age
isn’t the only publication with quite a bit of work to do in this area.
But any media organisation that hopes to reflect the community it
serves can’t get away with continuing to ignore or discount the views
of half the population, and the paper will benefit if it can get more
women into senior decision-making positions.