The BBC has pledged to put more female news presenters on television. But they are unlikely to find their way onto BBC Radio 4’s Today after its editor said most female journalists did not have a thick enough skin to deal with the programme’s “incredibly difficult” environment.
As regular listeners may well be aware, I listen to Radio4 all day long- and all night (insomnia ftw)- and I heard Ceri Thomas (who is male (I’d always assumed he was a she (ironically)) talking about the Today Programme the other day- on Feedback (Radio4’s um, feedback, show).
There were a couple of listeners questioning him about the interviewing style of the programme- it is famously brilliant- and also quite often aggressive in style.
Anyhoo- in the course of the discussion, one of the listeners asked why more women weren’t on the show- not just as presenters, but as interviewees and contributers.
Ceri Thomas’ off hand explanation that women couldn’t handle the environment was shocking…. everyone else involved in the discussion displayed clear signs of ghasted flabber, and the chair of the discussion even gave him the opportunity to back out of the corner- but he didn’t
Tosser.
