Seattle Reporter Takes on the Trolls
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I had said this before, when it comes to dealing with the haters and the trolls, the women in TV news have it so much worse then the men.
They get constant shots about their looks, their clothes and their hair....oh God do they get comments about their hair.
KIRO Reporter Amy Clancy decided to make a change and cut her hair short. Hey....it's her hair and she can do whatever she wants.
But, the trolls that obviously liked watching Clancy for her looks and really didn't care about the news, didn't like the new doo.
So they of course went to social media and caring little about their feelings, criticized Clancy on her new look.
Although it's not something she likes doing, Clancy decided to hit back at the trolls with a post of her own on KIRO's website.
She writes, "Why has it become OK to post comments on social media that people would never in a million years say to someone's face?
During a recent live feed on the KIRO 7 Facebook page about a serious topic (allegations of sexual assaults by ride-share drivers against female passengers), a number of comments focused on my newly-short hair, not the report itself.
"Makes her look old."
“Trying to copy [Megyn] Kelly? Doesn't look good on her, either."
After nearly 30 years in this business, I've experienced much worse than a few verbal jabs. I've been shot at, assaulted verbally and physically, and threatened with violence many times while doing my job.
So, why am I even bothering to share my feelings about trolls and their comments?
What concerns me is what I believe similar comments are doing to women in the news industry. A singular focus on our looks feels degrading to the work we do. Comments about our hair, our wrinkles, our faces, our makeup seem to diminish all that my generation of "older" female journalists did to be taken seriously and measured by our worth not by our looks.
In the 80s when I started in TV news, many of my female colleagues cut their hair in order to be taken seriously. I thought, in 2016, we were beyond that. That we were finally able to dress and look however we choose and still be taken seriously. I was wrong.
I'm very concerned that young and aspiring female journalists might take similar comments to heart and change something about themselves based on the opinions of people they've never even met. They shouldn't. I'm concerned that in an effort to generate more likes and followers on social media, they'll hypersexualize their "brands" to the detriment of all female journalists' credibility; I already see this happening, and it makes me worry about the future of our industry.
I believe our credibility should be more important than our desirability.
Thankfully, I work for a company that values the experience long-time journalists bring to a newsroom.
Whatever my hair looks like, I'm still the same reporter I've always been."
Will this one post stop the trolls? No, but I'm sure it felt good for Clancy to vent a bit. Kind of like a new haircut.
