Chairs Report

CHAIRS REPORT

Women in Journalism has had another brilliant year. We launched our student wing, made national news headlines with our summit on Teenage Boys and the Media and increased our programme of seminars, which have been more popular this year than ever before running a total of 7 seminars in the last 9 months . Membership is stable...given the tough climate many are seeking our network opportunities.

We've also welcomed some of the top names in our industry on to the WIJ committee, including Maureen Rice, award winning editor of Psychologies magazine, Guardian womens editor, Kira Cochrane, Clare Gogerty, editor of Coast magaziine, deputy editor of Country Living Kitty Corrigan and leading new media editor and writer Becky Hogge. Maureen is will be joining me as co-chair this year: She's one of the most dynamic women in journalism I've ever met  and I'm looking forward hugely to working with her. Fiona Bawdon, who has been such a fantastic committee member and done so much to launch our two media summits , will take over as deputy chair.

WELCOME TO WIJ STUDENTS
Our new student wing launched in September 2009. Big thanks to Maureen Rice for everything she did to get it off the ground and bring the first WIJ student committe together. Nikki Baker will shortly be posting a report on the student wing's progress. If you are interested in joing as a student WIJ member please email wijuk@aol.com or go online to www.womeninjournalism.co.uk and follow JOIN
NOW links

OUR NATIONAL MEDIA SUMMIT
In March WIJ held its second ever summit conference:  'Hoodies or Altar Boys?  What is media stereotyping doing to our British boys.' It was the follow up event to our 2008 summit on Teenage girls and the media, and was again organised  in collaboration with the British Library. The summit was chaired by the best-selling children's author Anthony Horowitz and panelists included David Lammy MP; MOBO-winning producer and DJ Dexplicit; Mail on Sunday columnist Suzanne Moore; Nathalie McDermott from On Road Media; Eve Pollard, former editor of Sunday Mirror and Sunday Express (and WIJ honorary president);  16-year- old Wilson Joaquim from the London Boxing Academy and Adam Bloomberg aged 19

The research company Echo conducted exclusive research into teen boys' attitudes for the summit (http://www.womeninjournalism.co.uk/node/325): very many thanks to Echo for their pro-bono involvement. The resulting report provided crucial evidence for the summit and the debate on the day. More than  100 school students attended,  plus a similar number of journalists (all WIJ members were invited), policy-makers, educationalists, etc. The day itself was a great success: the debate was frank and lively, with many of the youing people expressing frustration and some anger about the way they felt misreprented by the media. Read the full report (http://www.womeninjournalism.co.uk/node/321) The summit generated a large amount of media coverage, including a debate on Sky News, LBC radio, and articles in the Independent, Guardian, Press Gazette, Mail on Sunday and New Statesman (click to see full http://www.womeninjournalism.co.uk/node/325).

It was great to see that WIJ had succeeded in raising  the profile of this important issue. David Lammy and Anthony Horowitz have said  that they would like to work with WiJ on future ideas to keep this issue in the public eye.

SEMINARS
Our impressive programme of seminars was kicked off with “How to get to the top?? with Louise Chunn and Maureen Rice speaking on the panel. Followed by ??How to stay on top?? with Alexandra Shulman, Gillian de Bono and Susy Smith .

''The Perfect Pitch. How to Nail it!? a Q&A with commissioning editors provided our WIJ members with invaluable advice in the current climate. ''From Magazine to Web. The process to make it happen'' was another essential tool on every journalists repetoire.  Bernadette Fallon, Kathyrn Corrick spoke with the event chaired by Becky Hogge. ''How to be a good ghost'' continued WIJ's successful book writing seminars . Chaired by Alexandra Campbell the panellists were Andrew Crofts, probably Britain’s most successful ghostwriter, agent Robert Kirby of United Agents, Doug Young, publisher at Transworld, Liz Dean, managing editor of illustrated book publishers Cico Books and Corinne Sweet, broadcaster, psychologist and author.

Thank you to all the seminar chairs mentioned above and for Kitty Corrigans ideas, enthusiam and chairship of the programme .Many thanks also to Finers Stephens Innocent and Wiggin LLP for hosting these seminars. We are extremely grateful to them.

YEAR OF EQUALITY

To mark the anniversary of the biggest demonstrations for women's suffrage in London in 1908, WiJ joined forces with the Guardian's Comment is Free for an online debate about the progress of women's equality, with many WiJ members contributing. Equality was also the theme of the  WiJ breakfast at Labour Party conference in Manchester in September. Vera Baird QC was our guest speaker
and the event was kindly sponsored by Tesco.

PARTIES

Our Xmas party on December 2, 2008 was, as always, a hot ticket.  A record number of over 200 guests had a fabulous night out, sustained by plenty of festive fizz and delicious food from Marco Pierre White's kitchen at the WIJ annual Christmas party. WiJ would like to extend kind thanks to Coca-Cola Great Britain, who have generously sponsored the event for the past 3 years.

Last year's annual WIJ summer party was held on June 26th, 2008 for the first time at the beautiful October Gallery in Bloomsbury. It was a warm summer evening, and 150 WIJ members and guests  enjoyed cold wine, canapes and took home an amazing complimetary lancome beauty case courtesy of sponsors  L'Oreal. This years party is on July 2, again at the October Gallery - I hope to see many of you there