South Africa: Surviving the trade in newsrooms

I vividly remember 18 years ago, when I joined a big daily newspaper in the centre of Johannesburg, South Africa as a news reporter. A woman photographer bounced up to me with an unusual introduction: “You have a little baby, don’t you?” I said yes.

Next, she shared that she had a baby. Having a baby meant she had to learn a few tricks of the trade to survive trade in the newsroom as a woman.

“May I give you a bit of advice? Whatever you do, if your baby is sick, do not ever tell the news desk, that is why you have to leave. Just say you are sick and leave, actually better still, say you have period pains – then they want to get rid of you as quickly as possible, because they don’t know how to react to that.”

Let us fast track to 2012, I have a 19 year old daughter, the same one who had a temperature back then. She is studying media at a local university and thinks she might like to be a journalist one day. I wonder if I will soon be imparting the same advice as that I got from the female photographer. Click here to read more

Source: GL Opinion and Commentary Service