“I’m just about the oldest female TV executive working for a broadcaster and for many reasons being a woman working in news and current affairs has been a struggle,” said Dorothy Byrne at last week’s Edinburgh International TV Festival. The Head of News and Current Affairs at Channel 4 delivered this year’s MacTaggart Lecture, and held nothing back. She named names — including some of the men who had previously been honored with giving the lecture, such as alleged sexual predator Kevin Spacey — decried the lack of inclusivity in TV, shared deeply personal stories about facing sexism and misogyny, and was equal parts incisive and hilarious. “A quick tip for men. Don’t take your trousers off unless specifically invited to do so,” she told her audience.
Byrne recalled a female boss telling her “that a director would take [her] out to teach [her] the basics of filming and he would sexually assault [her], but [she] wasn’t to take it personally because he sexually assaulted all women he worked with.” She revealed, “Sure enough he did assault me – one of the few examples in my career of the promise of a TV boss coming true. His assault was a criminal offense but who could I complain to? I learned early on that as a woman I was on my own.”
Much of Byrne’s talk focused on how media can and must change to remain relevant and accurate. “My vision of empowered and daring producers and commissioning editors who want to shape society for the better doesn’t work if all those empowered people are just a bunch of posh boys,” she emphasized. “By what right do we showcase big ideas if we are such a small group? I looked at the two Directors UK reports which came out late last year. OK, the figures are not completely up-to-date but only 2.2 percent of directors came from black and ethnic minority backgrounds and fewer than 25 percent were women. That matters,” she explained, “because we can’t reflect society properly if we ourselves don’t reflect society.”
“When you change who is making TV, you change TV,” the exec said. “I am proud that I was part of a group of women who changed current affairs by making regular programs about issues affecting women.”
The first program she produced and directed for, “World in Action,” an investigative current affairs show, addressed rape in marriage, which was “then not a crime,” she recalled. “Two very senior journalists told me it wasn’t a suitable subject for the program and indeed not even a ‘story.’ They were right. It was more than a story. It was a scandal which besmirched our society.”
You can watch Byrne’s full lecture below.
