When only men make the news

The above opinion piece by Sushmita S Preetha published in TDS on April 20 brings up many realities of the newsroom no doubt, but my trivial experience of working as a reporter in the newsroom for three years sort of compels me to see things differently.

To be honest, the bad habit of taking cigarette breaks actually allows news men to come up with story ideas and share information and also make friends outside the newsroom. It's no cigarette magic though. However, to encourage another human being to open up to you, you need more than a phone or a mic. You need to ease up your source so that he (and mostly sources are he; I have found very few women in that role) shares information, not always with the view that you will make a news out of it but just to brag about how he knows about everything under the sun. I have found very few women attempting to give a lecture on something. There is also the fear of getting in trouble with the boss. Most women seem to prefer to play safe and I don't blame them. Survival in any job is not easy for women.

As a female reporter, I felt it was hard for me to make 'good' friends with sources who were men. Your sources will not always be the most refined gentlemen. Do you think the president (who is a male) of a truck driver's association would feel more comfortable being friends with a female reporter? The answer is NO. At least not in our society. At times, people do open up to female reporters but that is mostly for 'human stories'.

Then comes the informal adda. Many of my male colleagues have adda venues, even the married ones would often drop by at Shahbagh or some other adda places after office. How many female reporters do so? As far as I know, the majority of my female colleague from other newspapers go straight home after work. Yes, social media has changed the scenario to some extent. You can get story ideas from there but it already gets stale by the time you start working on that.

About transport, night shifts, babies back home -- from the employer's point of view, especially in a world where newspapers are also profit making ventures, why would I employ someone who might increase my cost of production? There are male reporters who are ready to work in the absence of 
all kinds of facilities.

Anonymous, On e-mail