Huge response to STV media training for ‘expert women’

There was a phenomenal response to Women in Journalism Scotland’s initiative with STV to help equip expert women for broadcast media interviews.

More than 200 women who work across healthcare and science applied to take part, demonstrating the range of female expertise in Scotland and the appetite to be heard in broadcast media.

To accommodate everyone, there were two separate sessions. The first of these - for more than 80 healthcare specialists - took place on Zoom on April 1.

STV news editor Nichola Kane, who chaired the event, began by outlining STV’s drive to improve gender equality in the news output. It’s working - in February there was a 53/47% split of women to men across contributors on the news.  

She accepted that a broadcast news interview can be daunting and brought in senior staff from STV News, and women healthcare experts who have been put through their paces in news media, to help demystify the process.

Linda Bauld, professor of public health at the University of Edinburgh, has become a familiar face since the emergence of COVID-19. She stressed that news media want healthcare experts to convey important health information, so they are unlikely to get the grilling that other contributors might expect.

She added that healthcare experts are good at interpreting complex data to make it meaningful. She suggests using this skill in the TV studio, and having three key points you really want to convey. 

Sharon Frew, STV’s chief reporter, emphasised that you don’t need reams of facts and figures. Instead she is looking for people to be clear, concise and confident and tries to put them at ease over the phone or before the cameras roll.

Lesley Colquhoun Banks, a newsgathering producer, underlined the importance of press officers as gatekeepers in fielding expert opinion. STV has been working to highlight the need for a variety of voices to corporate communications teams and some organisations have been making a conscious effort to field spokespeople from diverse backgrounds. 

Zoom was also cited as a positive development. It allows experts to be interviewed in an environment they are comfortable in and can help overcome logistical challenges. But, coming out of COVID, STV remains keen to capture images that support a story, for example, having interviews take place in hospitals.   

Much of the discussion until this point was about pre-recorded interviews where there is the opportunity to say you’re not happy with a take, or that you don’t want to stray into controversial territory. 

Kelly-Ann Woodland and Andrea Brymer joined the session to give the live TV perspective, reinforcing that their job is to make an expert feel comfortable and convey key points that will bring a story to life. Kelly-Ann asked people to try to relax and focus on having a conversation with the presenter and Andrea pointed out it’s useful if you can provide human interest to tell a story. 

A key takeaway from the session was that people could make direct contact with the team if they had a story. “The worst that could happen is we have to pass on that occasion and keep you in mind for future reports.”  

And a speech impediment is not a barrier to being on air. Nichola stressed that STV is really keen to reflect a diverse society and had recently supported a woman with hearing loss to make herself heard in a news report. Lesley Colquhoun Banks added that the planning stage would allow you to raise any concerns about impediments that might affect audience comprehension and for both parties to explore what steps to take to support a successful interview.     

The session was brought to a close by WIJS co-chair and STV producer, Catriona MacPhee, who said: "WIJS members want to have better representation of society in their work and it’s clear from this session that there are a lot of expert women who want to have a voice in the media.”

The second workshop, which will take place on May 19, is for experts who work in other areas of science. STV hopes to run similar sessions for other sectors in the future to help promote gender equality in broadcast news.   

Report by Nancy McLardie. Nancy is an award-winning communications professional with more than 25 years’ experience working in the public and third sectors, most recently in public health and procurement.