An employment tribunal will next week hear claims that experienced television 
journalist Dianne Stradling lost her job with Anglia TV because of ageism. But how easy is this to prove?
Dianne (pic left) was one of several reporters made redundant last February in a savage round of job cuts, which felt like she was “thrown on the scrapheapâ€. Hr case will be heard last week. About 30 jobs – a third of Anglia’s staff – were axed as part of a national plan by ITV to sve £40 million a year by axing more than 400 posts across its regional news networks. Dianne had been with Anglia for 18 years, and has also worked for Sky and the BBC.
Fellow sacked journalist, Rebecca Atherstone (right) is also claiming unfair dismissal and age discrimination against the broadcasting company, saying it felt like “having an arm cut offâ€. Both women found the experience deeply devastating.
Simply stated, in legal documents drawn up for her employment tribunal, Dianne claims: “My employer made me redundant by pretending my job was redundant. It is not. It is being done by a younger person, simply with another job title.†It will be interesting to hear Anglia TV’s response to this, and the evidence needed to prove ageism. It simply isn’t fair to discriminate against a woman because of her age. If two women are capable of doing a job, although one is more experienced, is it ageism to prefer the younger person?
Restructuring at Anglia also resulted in the more youthful presenter Becky Jago replacing 
popular Clare Weller in her hot seat. It’s ironic that this was done at a time when more young people are leaving their TVs switched off in favour of new technology, with more older viewers I suspect tuning in to the news. Do people write in and complain about older TV presenters? Why is this assumption made that they suddenly reach a sell-by date defined by bosses who are men (I presume) at broadcasting companies?
It’s also ironic that the BBC is now seeking to recruit women presenters aged over 50 to counter accusations of ageism. I would urge Dianne, Rebecca and Clare to fire off their CVs there as quickly as possible.
One only has to remember the huge backlash from the sacking of Arlene Philipps from Strictly Come Dancing and Carol Vorderman from Countdown – both favourites of mine for their talent and personality who were ludicrously replaced by younger women – to realise that this is the the moment when age does indeed come before beauty!
UPDATE: Baroness Greenfield, the UK’s most prominent female scientist, is to sue for sex discrimination after losing her job as director of The Royal Institution of Great Britain.
UPDATE: Here is a link to a report of the tribunal hearing.
It will be interesting to see the outcome of those two cases.
I’m with Cherry Pie – these cases will be very interesting. Please keep us updated.
Re the Strictly Come Dancing fiasco – I was under the impression that Arlene Philips had given herself enough rope by taking John Sergeant apart on the Steve Wright show the day before he withdrew, then going on the show and saying she’d never said anything against him. I was certainly surprised that Harriet Harman had waded into the row; as Minister for Equality, she’ll be in difficult waters should Philips be reinstated, returning the panel to being all-white.
It appears to me to be yet again people using the ” complaints about anything ” system .
If there were 34 redundencies then it can hardly be claimed as either sexist or ageist can it ?
Im afraid that all too often nowadays there are those who simply fail to see the facts , in this case that there was a need to reconfigurate and they were amongst the losers .
Thats life , if they are so good then one would imagine they could find new avenues for their talents instead of costing all of us money with these ridiculous cases.
Other examples are all those who now go running to the legal and police world the moment they have felt ” offended ” by someone else, its frankly pathetic .
Did you hear P.D.James’ pertinent comments on this on Radio 4?
Winchester Whiperer , yes I heard all of the grilling this elderly lady gave the head of the Beeb , she was brilliant .
Now thats the sort of woman we need in public life not the wingers going on about being treated unfairly !
Is this ageism or veiled sexism? I will be interested to see the outcome of the Baroness Greenfield case, and good luck to her.
were you once meployed by television?