Interview: Sarah Montague (Evening Standard)
By David Rowan
SOMEONE warn Michael Buerk - the Today programme looks perilously close to becoming his feared "femocracy". As Sarah Montague and Carolyn Quinn divvied up the interviews yesterday morning - between news bulletins from Carolyn Brown - BBC Radio's flagship sounded unusually like Woman's Hour. Maybe the men really have become redundant.
For Montague, Sue MacGregor's successor as Today's main "female" voice, Buerk's comments about women's growing dominance prompted evident concern. After dismissing him to a reporter as "another white, middle-aged male", she confronted him on last Thursday's programme in a feisty, impatient interview. Pressing him on whether women seriously held the upper hand in government and society, she never quite elicited a satisfying answer. So what does she now say to his complaint that men have been marginalised by "women's rules"?
"I think it's fantastic that Michael Buerk said those things, because it's what he and people like my mother think," Montague, 39, says after yesterday's show in a TV Centre coffee bar. "His quotes in The Radio Times seemed to suggest that the feminisation of society was leading to a drop in sperm count - which may well be true, though it seems rather unlikely - but there are serious issues worth raising."
There are, she adds, "interesting" questions to be asked about why senior journalists like Buerk are no longer considered suitable to present the TV news. But as for his substantive concern, she sees it only as "refreshing" that women increasingly hold senior managerial and presenting roles in an organisation like the BBC.
"Let's put it this way: is there too much oestrogen at the Today programme? Has that ever been a criticism? I'd prefer to think it shouldn't make any difference. Perhaps naively, I cling to the belief that I wasn't picked [to present] only because I was a woman, but because of my potential."
Nor is she happy about the "Sue MacGregor's successor" label. "Why should there only be one female on the Today programme?" she asks. "Nobody thinks there should be only one male. The joy this morning was that I didn't even notice there were two women presenters."
But if John Humphrys's interview style is occasionally criticised for its testosterone-fuelled aggression, it remains the preferred choice of Today's editors, along with James Naughtie's, for the serious 8.10am political slot. MacGregor used to grumble that she felt unfairly denied her share. Montague, too, is insistent that such decisions should not be made on gender grounds. "The idea that men are confident, aggressive, brash, while women are considerate, soft and emotional ... I don't see that clear categorisation, and I don't see why we can't all strive for a mixture."
All nicely idealistic - but the reality is that Montague is still failing to get as many 8.10s as the men. "There's no doubt about that," she replies, "but how long has John been doing the programme, how long has Jim? And how long have I?" She joined in 2002. "I still see Sue, and I understand that she used to get annoyed. But there are other things at play. John is a brilliant interviewer ... I'm not saying that I'm not, but there are differences ... It's less of an issue than it has been. When I started, I was more wound up - I thought I was never going to get better if they didn't show a bit of confidence in me."
MONTAGUE is a surprisingly uneasy interviewee. She openly questions why she let herself agree to meet, and frequently asks to go off the record. In person, though warm and thoughtful, she is also less forcefully articulate than her radio persona would suggest - she worries at one point: "I feel I haven't finished any of these thoughts," and tends to leave her answers hanging in mid-air.
Perhaps it's nerves - she has, after all, faced a difficult press since joining Today. Her confidence has taken a few hits, with media critics accusing her of being "hopelessly out of her depth" in big interviews, nasty letters from "the green ink brigade", and what she calls "evil" gossip items delighting in her every fumble.
At times, she admits, she misses the smaller audiences of News 24, which she joined at its launch. "Sometimes the vast [Today] audience has felt like a curse rather than a blessing," she confesses. "You get the interviews, but sometimes you just think, 'I wish I were doing this in a vacuum.' Not least because you know you'll probably do a better job, and that's to do with confidence and being knocked, all that sort of stuff. I've got a much thicker skin than I had."
She claims not to have been bothered by reports that Carolyn Quinn, sitting in during Montague's most recent maternity leave, won greater acclaim from listeners and producers. "No, that wasn't hurtful. I remember sitting at home with my second baby, reading a newspaper story which began, 'Pity poor Sarah Montague ... ', but feeling blissfully happy and wondering why. Perhaps it was the effect of progesterone. It just didn't feel as if Carolyn was 'usurping' me - I've always been a big fan of hers, and was pushing her. I don't feel the queen bee syndrome. I want more female voices on Today."
Reports of their supposed rivalry, she says, are absurd, if inevitable. "You think, 'For God's sake, why should it be presented as any more competitive with Carolyn than with Ed Stourton or other males?' If Stephen Sackur comes on the programme, nobody says, 'There's Sarah, scratching his eyes out.'"
Montague came late to broadcasting. She grew up in Guernsey, and after studying biology at Bristol University became a stockbroker. She hated it. She then went into business with a friend who owned Charles Tyrwhitt Shirts, again with limited success. Aged 24, at a crossroads, she decided that radio current affairs was her passion. Unable to find a job, she offered to make coffee at Guernsey's local TV channel. This led to shifts for Reuters and ITN, and a business correspondent's job at Sky. The BBC headhunted her to join News 24 as a presenter; then came Newsnight and Today.
"I'm phenomenally lucky to have got Today so young. You think, 'Bloody hell, this is exactly what I want to be doing,'" she says. "Then you have children." She has two girls, aged three and 18 months. "I defy any woman who goes through that not to question whether they can do it all. I have a brilliant nanny and supportive husband [a rural-business consultant], and because of my hours I have a fantastic balance compared with friends who work conventional hours in the City. But it's knackering. The number of times I've thought, 'Jesus, this is the wrong time in my life to have children.'"
These pressures, rather than any "glass ceiling", are what limits highflying women's progress in an organisation like the BBC, she suggests. Yes, men such as Nick Robinson and Andrew Marr have tended to take the most senior political roles - but then there is a greater pool of male competition. "Among women, there's Kirsty Wark, Martha Kearney, there's Carolyn and me ... but you're searching about. And with television, if you're going to select on looks and a certain ability in front of the camera, then you are going to perhaps preclude a lot of people. So women think, 'This is bloody difficult, perhaps I'll take a few years out.' It would be nice to know when a woman will present the general election coverage - but it's difficult to see." Would Montague like the job? "That's a long time down the road," she says hesitantly, "but provided I'm not too old and ugly for television."
In the BBC, she says, she has finally found her "spiritual home". A short time after joining News 24, she was trying to work out what it was that created such a different atmosphere compared with Sky. "Then," she reflects, "I realised that 50 per cent of the newsroom were women."
That would be the feminised BBC that so troubled Michael Buerk, then? "Yes. Actually, society's been feminised. Is that such a bad thing?"
(Evening Standard, August 24 2005)
. . . AND READ MORE MEDIA INTERVIEWS HERE . . .
SOMEONE warn Michael Buerk - the Today programme looks perilously close to becoming his feared "femocracy". As Sarah Montague and Carolyn Quinn divvied up the interviews yesterday morning - between news bulletins from Carolyn Brown - BBC Radio's flagship sounded unusually like Woman's Hour. Maybe the men really have become redundant.
For Montague, Sue MacGregor's successor as Today's main "female" voice, Buerk's comments about women's growing dominance prompted evident concern. After dismissing him to a reporter as "another white, middle-aged male", she confronted him on last Thursday's programme in a feisty, impatient interview. Pressing him on whether women seriously held the upper hand in government and society, she never quite elicited a satisfying answer. So what does she now say to his complaint that men have been marginalised by "women's rules"?
"I think it's fantastic that Michael Buerk said those things, because it's what he and people like my mother think," Montague, 39, says after yesterday's show in a TV Centre coffee bar. "His quotes in The Radio Times seemed to suggest that the feminisation of society was leading to a drop in sperm count - which may well be true, though it seems rather unlikely - but there are serious issues worth raising."
There are, she adds, "interesting" questions to be asked about why senior journalists like Buerk are no longer considered suitable to present the TV news. But as for his substantive concern, she sees it only as "refreshing" that women increasingly hold senior managerial and presenting roles in an organisation like the BBC.
"Let's put it this way: is there too much oestrogen at the Today programme? Has that ever been a criticism? I'd prefer to think it shouldn't make any difference. Perhaps naively, I cling to the belief that I wasn't picked [to present] only because I was a woman, but because of my potential."
Nor is she happy about the "Sue MacGregor's successor" label. "Why should there only be one female on the Today programme?" she asks. "Nobody thinks there should be only one male. The joy this morning was that I didn't even notice there were two women presenters."
But if John Humphrys's interview style is occasionally criticised for its testosterone-fuelled aggression, it remains the preferred choice of Today's editors, along with James Naughtie's, for the serious 8.10am political slot. MacGregor used to grumble that she felt unfairly denied her share. Montague, too, is insistent that such decisions should not be made on gender grounds. "The idea that men are confident, aggressive, brash, while women are considerate, soft and emotional ... I don't see that clear categorisation, and I don't see why we can't all strive for a mixture."
All nicely idealistic - but the reality is that Montague is still failing to get as many 8.10s as the men. "There's no doubt about that," she replies, "but how long has John been doing the programme, how long has Jim? And how long have I?" She joined in 2002. "I still see Sue, and I understand that she used to get annoyed. But there are other things at play. John is a brilliant interviewer ... I'm not saying that I'm not, but there are differences ... It's less of an issue than it has been. When I started, I was more wound up - I thought I was never going to get better if they didn't show a bit of confidence in me."
MONTAGUE is a surprisingly uneasy interviewee. She openly questions why she let herself agree to meet, and frequently asks to go off the record. In person, though warm and thoughtful, she is also less forcefully articulate than her radio persona would suggest - she worries at one point: "I feel I haven't finished any of these thoughts," and tends to leave her answers hanging in mid-air.
Perhaps it's nerves - she has, after all, faced a difficult press since joining Today. Her confidence has taken a few hits, with media critics accusing her of being "hopelessly out of her depth" in big interviews, nasty letters from "the green ink brigade", and what she calls "evil" gossip items delighting in her every fumble.
At times, she admits, she misses the smaller audiences of News 24, which she joined at its launch. "Sometimes the vast [Today] audience has felt like a curse rather than a blessing," she confesses. "You get the interviews, but sometimes you just think, 'I wish I were doing this in a vacuum.' Not least because you know you'll probably do a better job, and that's to do with confidence and being knocked, all that sort of stuff. I've got a much thicker skin than I had."
She claims not to have been bothered by reports that Carolyn Quinn, sitting in during Montague's most recent maternity leave, won greater acclaim from listeners and producers. "No, that wasn't hurtful. I remember sitting at home with my second baby, reading a newspaper story which began, 'Pity poor Sarah Montague ... ', but feeling blissfully happy and wondering why. Perhaps it was the effect of progesterone. It just didn't feel as if Carolyn was 'usurping' me - I've always been a big fan of hers, and was pushing her. I don't feel the queen bee syndrome. I want more female voices on Today."
Reports of their supposed rivalry, she says, are absurd, if inevitable. "You think, 'For God's sake, why should it be presented as any more competitive with Carolyn than with Ed Stourton or other males?' If Stephen Sackur comes on the programme, nobody says, 'There's Sarah, scratching his eyes out.'"
Montague came late to broadcasting. She grew up in Guernsey, and after studying biology at Bristol University became a stockbroker. She hated it. She then went into business with a friend who owned Charles Tyrwhitt Shirts, again with limited success. Aged 24, at a crossroads, she decided that radio current affairs was her passion. Unable to find a job, she offered to make coffee at Guernsey's local TV channel. This led to shifts for Reuters and ITN, and a business correspondent's job at Sky. The BBC headhunted her to join News 24 as a presenter; then came Newsnight and Today.
"I'm phenomenally lucky to have got Today so young. You think, 'Bloody hell, this is exactly what I want to be doing,'" she says. "Then you have children." She has two girls, aged three and 18 months. "I defy any woman who goes through that not to question whether they can do it all. I have a brilliant nanny and supportive husband [a rural-business consultant], and because of my hours I have a fantastic balance compared with friends who work conventional hours in the City. But it's knackering. The number of times I've thought, 'Jesus, this is the wrong time in my life to have children.'"
These pressures, rather than any "glass ceiling", are what limits highflying women's progress in an organisation like the BBC, she suggests. Yes, men such as Nick Robinson and Andrew Marr have tended to take the most senior political roles - but then there is a greater pool of male competition. "Among women, there's Kirsty Wark, Martha Kearney, there's Carolyn and me ... but you're searching about. And with television, if you're going to select on looks and a certain ability in front of the camera, then you are going to perhaps preclude a lot of people. So women think, 'This is bloody difficult, perhaps I'll take a few years out.' It would be nice to know when a woman will present the general election coverage - but it's difficult to see." Would Montague like the job? "That's a long time down the road," she says hesitantly, "but provided I'm not too old and ugly for television."
In the BBC, she says, she has finally found her "spiritual home". A short time after joining News 24, she was trying to work out what it was that created such a different atmosphere compared with Sky. "Then," she reflects, "I realised that 50 per cent of the newsroom were women."
That would be the feminised BBC that so troubled Michael Buerk, then? "Yes. Actually, society's been feminised. Is that such a bad thing?"
(Evening Standard, August 24 2005)
. . . AND READ MORE MEDIA INTERVIEWS HERE . . .
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