Miriam O’Reilly tells Staffordshire students why she fought ageism at the BBC

Report: Michael Perkins 
 
BBC journalist Miriam O’Reilly told Staffordshire University students her belief in freedom of speech meant she had to go through with a tribunal against her employers.

She won her case in January when it was decided she had been dropped from Countryfile because of her age.

She told students: ”I had worked for 20 years or more with some of the witnesses who had been called to swear that the decision to drop me wasn’t ageist. “I decided we needed an impartial view on the reasons why I was dropped. I had my feelings and the BBC had its view, so it was time to let the law decide.” O’Reilly was speaking to a packed film theatre at Staffordshire University to an audience of students, mostly from across the institution’s journalism courses, and staff. “I wanted to make this stand because I believe television shapes attitudes. It shapes broader social ideas about which prejudices are acceptable and which are not. “This doesn’t just affect me, this affects every woman and most of the men [in this room].”

For her stance commentators have called her a 21st century suffragette and even the Rosa Parkes of broadcasting. In the lecture, she was modest about these comparisons, but she did say: “I knew if I lost the BBC would disown me. “It was overwhelming because I’m not used to being the story I’m used to reporting on it.
“When I started the action against the Corporation in 2009 I decided to go public with my reasons for doing it because the debate on ageism was going nowhere.”

Miriam also told the students how her career in journalism had started, working as a reporter on the Kidderminster Times and freelancing for BBC Radio WM at weekends. “They didn’t pay me anything at first but I didn’t mind, I wanted the experience. By 2009 I was working as a presenter on Countryfile. “It was a hard dedicated slog building up my career and I wasn’t prepared to have it taken away just because I had wrinkles and it was ‘time to go’.” Her message to the aspiring journalists was that since her case attitudes in television were changing. She cited the number of older women on Strictly Come Dancing and I’m a Celebrity as examples. “We are seeing more older women, but we are not seeing enough.

“We still have a situation where regional TV news programmes are presented by young pretty girls sitting next to older grey-haired men.”

Photo: Miriam O'Reilly with MA journalism students Suzanne Jordan & Harlen Leonard

Source: Staffslive