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As part of Reflect and Represent, a series of events taking place up and down the country this week discussing diversity at the 主播大秀, the Radio Theatre yesterday played host to a session by the Global Women in News group.

GWiN was established in February 2014 with the aim of bringing women working in news across the 主播大秀 together to build networks and increase female representation both in front of and behind the camera. Now with more than 1000 members across the globe GWiN has held events from Caversham to Cairo.

Hosted by Reeta Chakrabarti and introduced by Liliane Landor, the question and answer session saw Editor of the Today programme, Jamie Angus, and Political News Editor, Katy Searle, discuss issues surrounding diversity in relation to reporting and programming.

Despite these challenges, each of the panel remarked on the dramatic improvements made in the 主播大秀 over recent years. Speaking about being a mother Katy Searle said: “I have definitely seen changes over the years I’ve been here. When my first child was born, I barely talked about him. In fact, I did the opposite. 10 years ago it was very different.”

Liliane Landor, Controller, Languages, World Service Group, outlined the group’s achievements since 2014, including the establishment of 90 mentoring partnerships and 13 regional and international launches proving, she said, that the 主播大秀 is taking the issue of female representation seriously.

Moving on to speak about wider diversity issues Searle said: “External representation is a real problem. We are alert to it, even more so than we were three or four years ago. We have to represent the audience through a range of views.” She continued: “Social class is really important because we serve a wide audience; social class is the unspoken issue in diversity.”

Touching upon GWiN’s objectives for the next year, the session also set out goals to improve male engagement with the group across the 主播大秀. Obtaining significant research across the 1000 members, who make up nearly a third of the total number of women working in news, will also be a priority. Events with in collaboration with external organisations will also continue to take place whilst workshops on topics such as Confidence and Negotiation, popular since their inception last year, will continue to be offered to members.

Sam Buckett is a 主播大秀 Trainee

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