So that last article was definitely an interesting one to write... Much food for thought. And I'm hoping some of you weigh in - right here or on twitter (@amritat) on what you think of the gender balance in your workplace, in the media, and some of the other issues the article highlights.
POST-SCRIPT
I have to say *that* might be the first public space in which the title of Book Two was revealed.
Interested? Interesting? I sure hope so!!
Wherever you are in the world, from New York to New Delhi, typical newsrooms are constantly abuzz. There is chatter, phone calls and people reading hastily-written copy aloud. In the English-language broadcast news space, in Delhi at least, those voices are often female.
Studios, meanwhile, are silent except for the anchor’s audio (the anchor’s ear is frequently buzzing!), and while you’ll often see ‘single-anchor shows’, the universal model for news broadcasts seems to be of the traditional dual-anchor, male-female type. Reassuringly, when it comes to gender equality, balance is built into the system. Where I work, at CNN-IBN, the odds of being recognised as ‘on-air talent’ seem tipped in favour of women. (What that has to say about the men hiring I will leave for you to judge.)
So much so, that when it comes to daytime news broadcasts, one can frequently see two women anchor together. I can count on the fingers of one hand the times I’ve seen two men anchor together in the past nine years. Make of that what you will. While there is a difference between daytime and primetime, and may sometimes be a perception of who should do the ‘softer’ news stories versus breaking the ‘hard news’ pieces, problems of gender inequality are not really seen in newsrooms and studios – the gender balance, at least in the English-language broadcast news space in India, seems to be on par with the best in the world. Rather, the largest disparities lie within the boardroom.
As Managing Editor of CNBC-TV18 Shereen Bhan tells me, “It’s different as far as the newsroom is concerned, and as far as the boardroom is concerned. We’ve seen the track record is much better in the newsroom, we still have a lot of room to grow in terms of the boardroom.” - See more at: http://himalmag.com/women-newsroom/?currentPage=all#sthash.W3RR9Yi6.dpuf
((This is an excerpt of the article in Himal SouthAsian - Feedback is welcome @amritat @Himalistan))
Now THIS is super-exciting news... We are on track for Book TWO, people.
It's a novel and should be out by the end of the year... so excited!
Waiting on the final edits and then, ta da! It's definitely a darker shade than you'd expect - intense, even, but fundamentally true
Can't wait to share more!!
Nothing like being a little unwell to bring out the melodrama in me!'
That and the flux - to put it mildly - but change is a good thing, I'm constantly being told these days... That's a good life lesson right there. (Always harder to learn these through experience than spout second-hand wisdom, though, hey?)
A little loopy on the early morning shift at work, which stretches on, with the new beat now taking up a lot of my time. (Btw this is how you know that time is elastic and relative, even if you're not Einstein - try a little sleep deprivation on the job and that'll do you nicely!)
The new beat -- foreign affairs -- is a super challenge but ... (and there's always a but!) there's a LOT to catch up on, and lots of new ground to cover, people to meet with (or not, as increasingly seems to be the case!). I seem to have missed that point in the last decade that saw journalists become unpopular - ouch! That does hurt.
Here was a calling that went beyond a profession... and to see it besmirched, well that stings. But the subtle shifts, the signs...you gotta wonder, do they speak to you directly? Or your experience?
A decade into this gig, I have to ask, is that the clock calling time?