View all newsletters
Sign up for our free email newsletters

Fighting for quality news media in the digital age.

Cathy Newman recalls ‘intimidating and unpleasant’ propositioning by national newspaper editor

By Andrew Pugh

Channel 4 News presenter Cathy Newman has revealed how an unnamed national newspaper editor repeatedly propositioned her after she had made it “patently clear that I wasn’t interested”.

Writing in the Daily Telegraph today, also said there was the “odd instance of sexism directed at me” during her time as a political correspondent based in the Westminster lobby.

Describing Westminster as “a male-dominated environment, reminiscent of a public school or an Oxbridge college”, Newman recalled “the peer who sent salacious texts” and “the MP who assumed I was a secretary because I was a woman”.

But the “most glaring instances of sexism”, she added, took place in newspaper offices “or at the hands of newspaper executives”:

When I worked for the Financial Times, I confronted a senior executive about the fact that a man who was significantly junior to me was getting paid a lot more. The executive asked me what I needed the money for, since I didn’t have a mortgage or a family.

I laughed it off and made sure I got a pay rise. Slightly more intimidating was the time, ironically at a political party conference, when a man who was then the editor of a national newspaper started propositioning me in the bar, despite knowing I was in a long-term relationship, and despite my making it patently clear that I wasn’t interested.

I quickly made my excuses and left, as did the women allegedly targeted by Lord Rennard, but the minute I got up to my room, my phone rang. It was the very same editor asking if he could share my room because he had omitted to book himself into a hotel. I gave him short shrift, but the experience was intimidating and unpleasant.

Content from our partners
How PA Media is helping newspapers make the digital transition
Publishing on the open web is broken, how generative AI could help fix it
Impress: Regulation, arbitration and complaints resolution

Yesterday Channel 4 News anchor Jon Snow wrote in depth about an incident when he was abused as a six-year-old boy.

Email pged@pressgazette.co.uk to point out mistakes, provide story tips or send in a letter for publication on our "Letters Page" blog

Select and enter your email address Weekly insight into the big strategic issues affecting the future of the news industry. Essential reading for media leaders every Thursday. Your morning brew of news about the world of news from Press Gazette and elsewhere in the media. Sent at around 10am UK time. Our weekly does of strategic insight about the future of news media aimed at US readers. A fortnightly update from the front-line of news and advertising. Aimed at marketers and those involved in the advertising industry.
  • Business owner/co-owner
  • CEO
  • COO
  • CFO
  • CTO
  • Chairperson
  • Non-Exec Director
  • Other C-Suite
  • Managing Director
  • President/Partner
  • Senior Executive/SVP or Corporate VP or equivalent
  • Director or equivalent
  • Group or Senior Manager
  • Head of Department/Function
  • Manager
  • Non-manager
  • Retired
  • Other
Visit our privacy Policy for more information about our services, how New Statesman Media Group may use, process and share your personal data, including information on your rights in respect of your personal data and how you can unsubscribe from future marketing communications.
Thank you

Thanks for subscribing.

Websites in our network