‘I started to realize it was the same voices in every story’
Q&A with Christine Dobby
Reporter, The Globe and Mail
Christine Dobby reports on corporate law for The Globe and Mail and continually endeavors to reflect women’s voices in her stories. Reflect Reality spoke with Dobby about her experience finding women sources. Her comments below relate to her previous work, reporting on the telecommunications sector in Canada.
Reflect Reality: How have you been working to include women sources in the telecom sector?
Dobby: Almost every person who I speak to is a man. Not the public relations people, but almost all my sources. Most of the upper management at the companies I write about are men. It is starting to change as more women come through engineering roles and move up the ranks, but if you want to talk to the guys at the top – they are guys.
I have been covering the same beat for six years. I was getting really bored with the same voices and sources in all the stories and twitter commentary.
It would be great to see someone more like myself commenting in the national media. I think they can bring a different perspective. The men who are running those companies are all smart and capable, but they are very similar to each other. They share the same experiences. It is interesting to hear the perspective from someone who is not from that exact same mold.
RR: How are you addressing this challenge?
Dobby: I started reaching out to the companies’ communications departments. I was hoping to be put in touch with professional women in organic ways when the story called for it or when that person was the best person to comment, rather than having them put forward a woman just because she is a woman. I was trying to get the PR people to think about that.
I can find women sources in the academic and consumer advocacy side of companies. But even from that perspective, it helps if I give them notice a day ahead of time, rather than try to get them to comment on the day of. I think they are not as accustomed to commenting [in the media] as their male colleagues. A lot of the men I deal with are more willing to assume that they know the topic and are well positioned to comment. Even top academic [women] in Canada have said to me, ‘I am really not the exact expert on this, this guy would be better.’ I try to give them a day and do a few follow ups. It’s hard when you are on a daily story. It’s easy to go to the people that will be reliable and answer the phone and give you that quippy statement.
I know there are a lot of women and non-white men who are at the Director and VP levels. You don’t have to only quote the CEO. Maybe there is a woman or a non-white man who is running a key division that has better information.
Dobby tweeted on International Women’s Day about a lack of diverse voices in her industry. The tweet got a lot of engagement, with people reaching out to her directly with ideas.
“It’s continually thinking about it. It’s continuing to try.”