Last night, at an event hosted by Women In Media, accomplished Australian journalist Annette Young spoke to a group of captivated women about how to traverse the tricky terrain of the modern media as a woman.
Young has had a decorated career across several journalistic platforms. She began her career as a 22-year-old cadet at the Age in Melbourne, and since then has reported from the Middle East, Europe, Asia and Australia. She worked as a producer for SBS World News and Dateline before moving overseas and working for a number of outlets in Jerusalem, including Nine Network News and 60 Minutes Australia.
During her tenure as a reporter in the Middle East, she covered a series of significant events and conflicts, including the Israel-Gaza War in 2008.
She then returned to Paris to work on France 24, where she later became the presenter of a new show called The 51%. The show is dedicated to exploring women’s issues from across the globe, telling stories of women from countries all over the world who are struggling with issues like abortion, family planning and the restrictions of Sharia Law.
Last night she spoke with journalist Tracey Spicer in Sydney and shared her career advice for young women. Young delivered this advice with equal candour and warmth when she was describing the challenges of being taken seriously in a contemporary newsroom as when she was describing the challenge of remaining collected and professional in the face of imminent rocket fire in a war zone.
Her warmth and honesty was humbling and inspiring; hearing a woman speak so candidly about the challenges she has faced and the joy she gets from her career in spite of them was powerful and motivating.
Young’s advice was focused on the media but these three lessons apply no matter what field you are forging a career in. Here’s what I learned from Annette Young.
1. Don’t be afraid to be pushy, bossy and nosy
One of the last things Young said before her talk ended was this: “Here’s my advice to young women starting out in journalism: It’s okay to be nosy. It’s okay to be pushy. Most of all, it’s okay to be bossy”. She explained that women – and young women in particular – are often put down for being too bossy or too forward where their male counterparts would simply be “driven” or “ambitious”. She said rather than allowing these qualities to be treated as criticisms, we need to embrace them.
Being bossy and nosy and pushy makes us good journalists, and we need to not be afraid to treat these qualities as assets even when others are trying to tell us otherwise, she said. Tenacity is one of our most valuable assets, and we cannot let others belittle us for possessing it.
“As a 22 year old female cadet at the Age, I was a ‘bossy young woman’. If I had been a young man, I would have been described as ‘ambitious’,” she explained to an audience full of women nodding along.
2. Keep your eye on the goal
When asked how she persevered through years of being overlooked by managers and producers in newsrooms across the world, Young simply said: “Keep your eye on the goal. Be clear about what you want and do everything you can to get it.”
This advice came with an honest and candid admission that the news industry really is particularly difficult for women. She describes a career-long struggle to be taken seriously; first as a cadet, then as a producer, then as an anchor.
“Let’s face it, most newsrooms are still run by middle-aged, middle-class men,” she said.
Young’s advice to be tenacious and persevere despite this resonated particularly acutely because she herself has embodied this so completely in her career. Young’s professional life has taken her to almost every corner of the world because she has followed opportunities wherever they have taken her and because she has known when her goals would be better served elsewhere.
Her other piece of advice for young women wondering how to tackle the gender discrimination in the news business? Always keep a sense of humour.
3. Constantly challenge others – and yourself
Young repeatedly told us that her aim as a journalist was to “make the unfamiliar familiar” and to challenge her viewers’ perceptions as frequently and fervently as possible. She described The 51% as a “gift” in this sense, because she is constantly able to tell stories that challenge the world’s ideas about women and the role they play in global society.
She told us to never be afraid to challenge the way people think, because this is one of the greatest powers we have asjournalists.
She described a time when a colleague called in a story for The 51%, saying she had gained access to a group of Sharia Law police and could produce a segment on them for the show. The kicker? Every single member of the Sharia Law police was a woman.
“That’s it,” Young said. “That’s the kind of story I want to tell to challenge the way people think.”
Young applies this philosophy to herself as well. When a colleague of hers first approached her about creating The 51% and asked her to present it, Young was sceptical. She said while she identified as a feminist, she thought a news program dedicated to women’s issues sounded like a “whinge fest”.
But she went away and delved into the stories her colleague had collected as a preliminary pitch for the show, and her perspective changed entirely. She went back to her colleague a week later and said: “This guy in the newsroom seriously earns 25% more than me?”
As a result of her being open to challenging her own ideas about feminism and its place in the news, Young ended up being able to create and anchor a program she described as “the greatest gift of her career”.
When Young finished her collection of constructive insights and deeply endearing personal anecdotes, all the young journalists in the room felt empowered and emboldened – tenacious, even – and we are grateful to her for that.